Cultural Divide
Posted here for 5-5-08

"The prerequisite for being a victim of an 'honor' killing in the Arab Middle East is that you need only be a female. And you don't have to engage in consensual sex before marriage to get your death sentence. That you die for this is a given. But you could also be punished by death for being raped or for people saying you were raped. In many cases, you also need only to look in the eyes of a male or be seen talking to one -- or to have someone say that you talked to one. Then you are a charmuta -- a whore. And you must die because your blood is the only substance that can wash your family's -- and community's -- shame away.

"And there will be no lawyer, no hearing, no defense for you. The male with whom you associated -- in the real or imagined world -- will always be exonerated, no matter what. And the family member who kills or maims you will never be punished. To the contrary, he will be seen as a hero and receive great rewards and respect for his gruesome deed. [. . .]

"In the Arab Middle East, baby girls are simply nor wanted -- and, as Souad [a Palestinian woman] recalls, 'Every birth of a girl was like a burial in the family.' The mother is always blamed for bringing a non-child (a girl) into the world -- even though we all know that its the father that determines the child's gender.

"In any case, baby girls are often just killed and disposed of in many parts of the Arab world. That is why Souad recalls her mother suffocating nine of her own baby daughters, twice right in front of her eyes.

"If you are a baby girl and are exonerated from death, you will confront vicious violence. The abusive and neglectful care of baby girls is rampant throughout the Arab Middle East. Purposeful injury to them is all too common, including burns and the injection of kerosene and medicines to the point of poisoning and death.

"Hospital records report frequent brain damage of newborn girls due to 'accidents.' The practice of inserting pins and needles into baby girls' abdomen and chest, and even into the fontanel, is extensive. Many female children have been killed in this way. Some girls survive and years later, even in old age, they discover that needles and pins are in their brains. Hospital admissions for girls suffering from malnutrition is also a cultural norm. [. . .]

"Islamic fundamentalists know -- all too well -- that the only way their cultures will survive is for one half of the human race to remain caged and enslaved. But the West stands in stark opposition to that pathological and death-seeking quest. [. . .]

"And so, [. . .] radical Islam shrieks and foams at the mouth in our modern world, tormented and enraged by the sprinkles of liberty that touch it -- and that it cannot withstand. Increasingly cornered by the nightmare of free and happy females, Islamism must lash out in rage and violence in its effort to preserve its tyranny over human life."

-- "'Honor Killing' Survivor Describes Ordeal," by Jamie Glazov, Whistleblower magazine, March 2008, pages 28, 30. Address: PO Box 2450, Fair Oaks, California 95628. Phone: 916-852-6300. Fax: 916-852-6302. Website.

A 23-Year-Old Palestinian Man Talks about Becoming a Suicide Bomber
Posted here for 4-28-08

"I study at a West Bank university and I have great hopes of getting married within the next couple of months. My life is very normal. I watch television, particularly news, and historical and religious programs. From time to time I play soccer and lift weights. [. . .]

"I originally decided to become a martyr after I saw what the Israeli army did in the refugee camp of Jenin in the big military campaign of April 2002. But this idea became stronger when I understood what status I will have in heaven if I sacrifice myself for Allah. Every time somebody else dies as a martyr in a suicide bomb attack, I pray for him but I feel jealous. I want to be where he is now and I pray that Allah will one day offer me this occasion and this honor. [. . .]

"[T]he highest prize is given to those who sacrifice themselves, their lives, their bodies and everything in this world. [. . .]

"The goal is not the killing of the Jews, but that this is the way to reach Allah. The goal is satisfying Allah and his instructions. No money interests, nothing. No brainwash, no pressure; it is my decision. All the other lies are pathetic Israeli propaganda.

"I pray that Allah gives me the honor to be dead in an operation. This is the supreme and the noblest way to ascend to Allah. [. . .]

"If I go in an operation, it means that I decided to leave behind my loved ones -- my mother, my father, brothers and sisters, all my family and my friends. [. . .]

"[Y]ou [who are not martyrs for Allah] will go to hell after living 50, 60, 70, 80 years, and I will go, I pray that Allah accepts, to heaven and there I will do and will enjoy what you did during these 80 years. The difference is that after these years you will burn in hell forever and I will, after my years in this world of faith, restraint and patience, enjoy Allah's pleasures forever. [. . .]

"I will tell you more the moment that I will explode myself when there will be one dark-eyed virgin who will carry up my soul to the sky. [. . .]

"In my opinion, America is the big enemy leading the war against Islam, Muslims, Palestinians and against anything that threatens the Zionist enemy. [. . .]

"My family, I think especially my mother, they have the feeling that one day they will hear that I carried out an operation. I do not think that they will be sad that I killed myself in an operation. It is the will to satisfy Allah."

-- "Hi, My Name Is Ahmed and I Want to Be a Suicide Bomber," by Aaron Klein, Whistleblower magazine, March 2008, pages 14-16, 18, 42. Address: PO Box 2450, Fair Oaks, California 95628. Phone: 916-852-6300. Fax: 916-852-6302. Website.

Politically Correct National Suicide
Posted here for 4-21-08

"The new [Energy Bill] law mandates that automakers must boost mileage by 40 percent -- to 35 miles per gallon -- by 2020. The reason given by the politicians is that this move will help make America less dependent on foreign oil. Funny, though, there isn't a word in the bill about drilling for American oil in Alaska or increasing drilling off shore. Both areas have proven to have near unlimited reserves that could easily free the nation from the Middle East oil czars. Why? Drilling American oil simply isn't politically correct.

"The main reason for the mandate is to satisfy the massive environmental lobby that nearly rules Capitol Hill. They have big bucks and a lot of power. Their ultimate goal is to get people completely out of their cars and onto public transportation. That's why you see little in the way of road improvement in transportation bills, but lots of money being thrown at public transportation. Public buses, subways and trains are politically correct. The problem is they just don't necessarily go where the average traveler needs to go -- at the time they need to go there. [. . .]

"Another major provision of the energy bill is the production of Ethanol -- again, a measure promoted as a way to get us off the foreign oil fix. The trouble is, American farmers can't raise enough corn to supply what is needed for the mandated Ethanol production, let alone supply enough to feed us. And the cost of corn products is already through the roof. As a result, to meet the congressional mandate, the U.S. now has to import corn to produce Ethanol. The main source is Communist China. [. . .]

"Congress managed to ban the incandescent light bulb. [. . .] [R]eports are now coming out that [the fluorescent replacement bulbs] cause migraine headaches in many people because they work like standard fluorescent tubes, which subtly flicker constantly. Epileptics are especially affected. [The new bulbs may cause massive problems, but they] are politically correct."

-- "Political Correctness Won't Run Your Car," by Tom DeWeese, The DeWeese Report, February 2008, pages 1-2, 4, published by the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road, #316, Herndon, Virginia 20171. Phone: 703-925-0881. Fax: 703-925-0991. E-mail. Website.

Falling Grades by Design
Posted here for 4-14-08

"Twenty years ago the U.S. ranked first in the world in the number of young adults who had high school diplomas and college degrees. Today we rank ninth and seventh, respectively, among industrialized nations. [. . .] The United States ranks 18 out of 24 industrialized nations in terms of relative effectiveness of its education system.

"It is simply a fact that over the past twenty years America's education system has been completely restructured to deliberately move away from teaching basic academics to a system that focuses on little more than training students for menial jobs. The fact is, the restructured education system has been designed to deliberately dumb-down the children. [. . .]

"Rather than to instill knowledge, [. . .] the education process became more of a method to instill specific agendas into the minds of children. [. . .]

"The new system used psychology-based curriculum to slowly change the attitudes, values and beliefs of the students. [. . .]

"NEA [National Education Association] leader William Carr, secretary of the Educational Policies Commission, clearly stated that new agenda when in 1947 he wrote in the NEA Journal: 'Teach those altitudes which will result ultimately in the creation of a world citizenship and world government . . . [W]e can and should teach those skills and attitudes which will help to create a society in which world citizenship is possible.' [. . .]

"[T]he blueprint for today's education system [. . .] is designed to de-emphasize academic knowledge; establish the one-world agenda with the United Nations as its center and away from belief in national sovereignty; replace individual achievement with collectivist group-think ideology and invade the family with an 'It takes a village' mind-set. [. . .]

"[As] facts are exposed [. . .], the American people will begin to understand that the problem with education isn't low paid teachers and crowded classrooms -- but rather, is the result of a cynical, deliberate attempt to dumb-down America to promote a radical political agenda."

-- "American Education Fails Because It Isn't Education," by Tom DeWeese, The DeWeese Report, January 2008, pages 1-3,6, published by the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road, #316, Herndon, Virginia 20171. Phone: 703-925-0881. Fax: 703-925-0991. E-mail. Website.

The Home Mortgage Crisis: Handiwork of Leftists and Washington Bureaucrats
Posted here for 4-7-08

"Banks were ordered to lower lending standards for race reasons. Right now official Washington is gearing up for an enforcement jihad against banks and lending institutions which handed mortgages to millions of people who could not afford them.

"Ah, but who sparked this housing bubble mess? It was the Federal Reserve Board working in collusion with the political class that pumped trillions of dollars in dirt-cheap mortgage loans into the economy. [. . .]

"[F]ederal regulators and leftist groups bullied banks to lower lending standards starting in the 1990s or risk being branded as racists.

"Under pressure from left-wing activist groups such as ACORN, federal regulators ordered banks to relax lending standards. [. . .] The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act mandated banks to collect racial data on applicants. When studies confirmed 'minority' mortgage applicants tended to have weaker credit, regulators and race-baiting liberal activists would seize upon the situation and orchestrate bad PR and other trouble for the targeted bank.

"The Clinton-era Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to shower mortgages over 'underserved' communities. [. . .]

"Banks with sound lending standards were punished. Merger plans were frustrated by left-wing activists and their regulatory allies. Others faced intervention by the Justice Department."

-- The American Sentinel, March 2008, page 12. Address: American Lantern Press, Incorporated, 101 Washington Street, Falmouth, Virginia 22405. Phone: 540-371-1807. E-mail."

The "Year of Fear"
Posted here for 3-31-08

"The year 2007 will go down as the 'Year of Fear,' in which a mob of militant enviro-activists, UN bureaucrats, prattling politicians, and Hollywood leftists largely succeeded in creating a climate of hysteria over climate change. The hysteria reached a global 'tipping point' level thanks to a stupendous day-in-and-day-out propaganda onslaught in the major media.

"Thanks also to that onslaught, Al Gore won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for his slick but fraudulent shockumentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which has been force-fed to hundreds of millions of traumatized school children worldwide. Many of these students have been forced to view Gore's apocalyptic frightfest multiple times. Unsatisfied that children were being sufficiently terrified, Laurie David, the co-producer of Gore's movie, co-authored a children's global-warming book for Scholastic Books entitled The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming. [. . .]

"Sensible adults have been coming back down to Earth as news gets out that the 'scientific consensus' over global warming is as fake as Gore's temperature statistics and claims of catastrophic sea-level rise. Thousands of scientists have been fighting back against the massive media campaign of disinformation and censorship. If they can break through the incredible dam of media lies, the sea of truth will sweep away the mountainous dung pile of global-warming lies faster than Hercules cleaned the Augean Stables."

-- "Crash Goes the 'Consensus"," by William F. Jasper, The New American, January 21, 2008, page 44. Published by American Opinion Publishing Incorporated, 770 Westhill Boulevard, Appleton, Wisconsin 54914. Phone: 920-749-3784. Fax: 920-749-3785. E-mail. Website.

Cheap Isn't Better
Posted here for 3-24-08

"We import 80% of the seafood we eat, and China is our largest foreign source. The FDA says that a quarter of the shrimp coming from China contains antibiotics that are not allowed in U.S. food production and cannot be eliminated by cooking. [. . .]

"China exports more than 80% of the world's vitamin C, which is put in thousands of processed foods from fruit drinks to applesauce to granola, and is used as a key food preservative. There is no claim of contamination yet, but many worry about dependence on China, which has driven all U.S. competitors out of business.

"The United States long ago banned lead in paint because it can cause learning disabilities, kidney failure, anemia and irreversible brain damage in children. But lead is widely used in Chinese manufacturing, and 80% of toys sold in the U.S. come from China. [. . .]

"Every one of the 24 kinds of toys recalled for safety reasons in the U.S. so far this year was manufactured in China. Because of lead paint, the U.S. has recalled hundreds of thousands of children's necklaces, bracelets, earrings, charms, rings, toy drums, and 1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden trains.

"Other recalled products include a ghoulish fake eyeball toy filled with kerosene, Easy-Bake Ovens that could trap children's fingers and burn them, and 450,000 tires that lacked an essential safety feature called a gum strip to keep the belts of a tire from separating.

"The FDA inspects only 1% of our imports from China. It's not realistic to believe that doubling or tripling the inspection rate would make any significant difference in the safety of foods or toys. Nor would FDA on-site inspection of producers in China be practical. When FDA investigators visited China in May, they found the factories closed, the machinery dismantled, and all records destroyed."

-- "Americans Need China-Free Food," by Phyllis Schlafly, The Phyllis Schlafly Report, February 2008, page 4. Address: PO Box 618, Alton, Illinois 62002. E-mail. Website.

Thought Control and Brainwashing at the University of Delaware
Posted here for 3-17-08

"[A] mandatory University of Delaware (UD) program requires all students living on campus to acknowledge 'all whites are racist.' This school of higher learning offers white students 'treatment' so they can overcome 'any incorrect attitudes regarding class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality' they held when they entered the school.

"According to the university's Office of Residence Life Diversity Education Training documents, UD states 'A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. . .'

"The UD documents further assert a white person cannot be a 'non-racist' because 'The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift the responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called blaming the victim).' [. . .]

"The school requires its approximately 7,000 residence hall students 'to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy and environmentalism.' The indoctrination program includes the order, 'A researcher must document that the treatment/intervention was faithfully applied (ex: specific lesson plans were delivered to every student, etc.)' and 'the school requires a systemic change as a result of the program."

-- "Thought Control Alive and Well at University of Delaware," Insider's Report, The DeWeese Report, December 2007, page 6, published by the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road, #316, Herndon, Virginia 20171. Phone: 703-925-0881. Fax: 703-925-0991. E-mail. Website.

Setting Illegals Free
Posted here for 3-10-08

"We now find that other-than-Mexican illegal immigrants, or OTMs as they are referred to by our Border Patrol, have discovered a loophole in our law, that could undermine any border control effort we undertake.

"Under this loophole, OTMs can cross our border illegally and be apprehended by our Border Patrol. Our Border Patrol is then forced to give them paperwork allowing them to bypass all other immigration checkpoints, and release them into our country.

"This criminal scheme is not the fault of some quirk in US law. It is being forced on our Border Patrol by the seething evil of international law, which we are allowing to undermine our rule of law, national immigration policy, Constitution, and sovereignty.

"International law says illegal immigrants must either be deported to their country of origin, or placed in detention. If there's no room in detention, they must be released on bail with the promise they return for trial.

"There's never enough room in our federal illegal immigrant detention centers to hold for trial the millions of illegals violating our southern border every year.

"And since these illegals are not Mexican, our Border Patrol is required to buy them airfare and drive them to the airport for a flight back to Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq, China, and elsewhere -- or let them go with their promise to return for trial.

"So they sign an agreement to show in court in 30 days, and are let go. With that paper in hand, they can pass legally through all the other Border Patrol checkpoints, and vanish into cities across America.

"We've caught 90,000 OTMs since October 1. Ninety-eight percent fail to show in court. Once hidden in large immigrant communities inside our country with new false identification papers, it becomes virtually impossible to apprehend them."

-- "A Free Pass for Illegal Immigrants," by Congressman Charlie Norwood, The DeWeese Report, August 2005, page 1, published by the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road, #316, Herndon, Virginia 20171. Phone: 703-925-0881. Fax: 703-925-0991. E-mail. Website.

Failed Policy
Posted here for 3-3-08

"By the 1950s, liberals [. . .] had a clear strategy: Integration would cure Americans of prejudice. White adults might not integrate willingly, but white children who went to school with blacks would grow up with enlightened views. The racial problem would finally be solved.

"In the Brown decision, the Supreme Court was willing to set aside certain legal considerations to achieve this high goal. Chief Justice Earl Warren's ruling was light on Constitutional reasoning but cited An American Dilemma, noting the psychological damage segregation was said to do to blacks. [. . .]

"The era of passive desegregation ended in 1968, when the Supreme Court ruled in Green v. New Kent County that Southern schools had to do more than open their doors to a few blacks. Campuses were to be deliberately integrated through race-based student assignment, and the 1971 Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg decision sanctioned busing as the preferred means of doing so. [. . .]

"[B]ut white parents refused to cooperate. When children from the 'bad' part of town started arriving by the busload or -- even worse -- when white children were bused across town to black schools, whites cleared out. In just seven years, nine high schools in Baltimore went from all-white to all-black. [. . .]

"This was the pattern everywhere. From 1968 to 1988, the Boston school district went from nearly 70 percent white to 25 percent white. [. . .] In only eight years, from 1968 to 1976, a staggering 78 percent of the white students left the Atlanta public schools, while white enrollment in Detroit and San Francisco dropped by 61 percent. [. . .]

"[By 1991,] busing had transformed America's big-city school districts into almost exclusively black and Hispanic preserves. [. . .]

"[Schools] discovered that getting students of different races in the door is not the same thing as getting them to mix. Students gravitate to different sports teams and clubs, eat lunch at segregated tables, and even leave school by different doors. [. . .]

"At Toombs County High School in Lyons, Georgia, separation was formalized in a tradition of segregated proms that began in the 1970s. In 2004, the school added a third prom -- for Hispanics. Principal Ralph Hardy said the tradition had nothing to do with race, simply with different tastes in food and music. [. . .]

"Black-white relations are reportedly worse when schools are 20 to 40 percent black. [. . .]

"After four years of separation, minorities can graduate in separate ceremonies. At the University of California at Los Angeles, it has become a bit of a trick to schedule all the ethnic graduations. There is one for blacks, one for Chicanas/Chicanos, and one for the entire Hispanic raza. [. . .]

"School integration has clearly not proceeded as planned. It is also worth noting that when there has been integration, it has not achieved its objectives. Although the larger purpose was to solve the American dilemma, school integration had three specific goals of its own: It would lift black academic achievement, raise black self-esteem, and give black and white children better impressions of each other. There have now been hundreds of studies of the effects of integration, and none of these goals was achieved. [. . .]

"The advocates of school integration thought it would succeed because they believed children do not see race. They were wrong."

-- "Integration Has Failed (Part I)," by Jared Taylor, American Renaissance, February 2008, pages 4-5, 7-9. Address: PO Box 527, Oakton, Virginia 22124. E-mail. Website.

Enemies Within
Posted here for 2-25-08

"Ultimately, while President Bush has succeeded in Iraq -- and the left has not yet granted that success to him -- he has failed in his efforts to take control of the United States government. He has not understood the first lesson of Government 101 from Ronald Reagan, which is that people are policy. In many cases he has allowed enemies of his policies to stay in positions where they're supposed to enforce those policies, or he's actually appointed them to positions where they would enforce policy. [. . .]

"[A] senior State Department official [. . .] was going around the world telling heads of state and others in foreign governments that they shouldn't really pay too much attention to the Bush Administration on Iraq because they were going to get it defeated at the UN anyway. This war wasn't going to happen, because it would be defeated at the United Nations. [. . .]

"Democrats and their allies created an underground resistance movement within the United States government, and they used these allies on the outside of government as well, to undermine the Bush Presidency, to subvert his policies, and if U.S. soldiers died in Iraq, if U.S. national security interests were harmed, they didn't care. [. . .]

"As we were going into Iraq, in March and April of 2003, there were CIA teams on the ground who were dead set against the Administration's plan, which was to empower the Iraqi National Congress. [. . .]

It's really a miracle that the President has succeeded in anything, given the efforts to undermine his policies within his own Administration by these partisan shadow warriors. [. . .]

"If the Americans are so unlucky as to elect a Democrat President in 2008, I think we will shortly be at war with Iran. [. . .]

"[Iranians think Democrats are weak, so they] believe they can get away with any kind of attack on America and we will simply send more lawyers, as we did in the 1990s with Osama bin Laden. They've seen what Democrats do in the White House. And elsewhere. If a Democrat wins in 2008, the shadow warriors will have essentially declared victory and they will be able to carry out their policies with no opposition whatsoever from the executive branch. We essentially abandon any kind of aggressive U.S. effort to go after the terrorists overseas on our own. We give over our sovereignty to international organizations, such as the United Nations and Interpol. We contract out the stalking of terrorists to the French, to the Germans, to the Pakistanis. The Europeans will be governed by the international criminal court; the Pakistanis will be governed by how much money we pay them. But our national security interests will not be met. [. . .]

"The good news is that Condoleezza Rice declared a program to spend $75 million to help the pro-democracy movement in Iran; the bad news is that the shadow warriors took over that program and made sure that not a penny got spent where it would do any good. [. . .] As a result of that undermining by the shadow warriors, today we are left with just two options: appeasement or war."

-- Comments by Kenneth Timmerman in the article "My Conversation with Kenneth Timmerman," by Rush Limbaugh, discussing the Timmerman book titled Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, The Limbaugh Letter, February 2008, pages 6-7, 9-10. Address: 1270 Avenue of the Americas, 14th Floor, New York, New York 10020. Show phone: 800-282-2882. Fax: 212-445-3963. E-mail. Website.

Losing the Truth to False Propaganda
Posted here for 2-18-08

"Yes, [weapons of mass destruction were indeed found in Iraq]. What was found [. . .] was hundreds of tons of chemical weapons precursors. These were the weapons that were never found, according to the formerly mainstream media, but they were discovered by U.S. combat troops on the way up to Baghdad in March and April of 2003. [. . . ] [When] an underground bunker full of chemical precursors was found, there was a CNN camera crew along with the soldiers [. . .] Of course they never reported the truth [. . .]

"I asked [why the Bush Administration went along with the notion the WMD weren't there, and] I almost invariably got the same response. 'We lost that one. Why go and fight a battle that we've already lost? We are going to look to the future and fight the future battles. [. . .] The media has beaten us. They have driven this notion of Bush lied, people died into the mentality of ordinary Americans to the extent that nobody would believe us.' This is what they told me: 'Nobody would believe us if we told them that we found chemical weapons, that we found even rockets packed with chemical munitions in Iraq, so why bother? We give up.' [. . .]

"The entire country [Iraq], when we went in, in 2003, was a vast weapons manufacturing facility. There are hundreds of these plants all over the country. Everybody knew about it. The United Nations knew about it, we knew about it, the French knew about it, the Germans knew about it, the Russians knew about it, the Chinese knew about it, and even the formerly mainstream media knew about. And yet they all chose to ignore that evidence."

-- Comments by Kenneth Timmerman in the article "My Conversation with Kenneth Timmerman," by Rush Limbaugh, discussing the Timmerman book titled Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, The Limbaugh Letter, February 2008, pages 8-9. Address: 1270 Avenue of the Americas, 14th Floor, New York, New York 10020. Show phone: 800-282-2882. Fax: 212-445-3963. E-mail. Website.

News of Cold Weather Goes Unreported
Posted here for 2-11-08

"South America this year [2007] experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency. [What, the mainstream media didn't tell you?]

"Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years.. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

"Last January [2007], $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. [. . .]

"In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872. [. . .]

"On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. [. . .]

"On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

"Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. [. . .]

"Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo."

-- "Year of Global Cooling," by David Deming, The Washington Times National Weekly Edition, December 24, 2007, page 32. Address: 3600 New York Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002. E-mail. Website.

Calls for Unity
Posted here for 2-4-08

"Virtually all calls for unity -- whether national, international or religious (as in calls for Christianity unity) -- do not tell the whole truth.

"If those who call for unity told the whole truth, this is what they would say: 'I want everyone to unite -- behind my values. I want everyone who disagrees with me to change the way they think so that we can all be united. I myself have no plans to change my positions on any important issues in order to achieve this unity. So in order to achieve it, I assume that all of you who differ with me will change your views and values and embrace mine.'

"Take any important issue that divides Americans and explain exactly how unity can be achieved without one of the two sides giving up its values and embracing the other side's values. [. . .]

"It is fascinating how little introspection Sen. Obama's 'unity' supporters engage in -- they are usually the very people who must forcefully advocate multiculturalism, who scoff at the idea of an American melting pot and who oppose something as basic to American unity as declaring English the country' national language.

Their advocacy of multiculturalism and opposition to declaring English the national language are proof that the calls of the left-wing supporters of Barack Obama for American unity are one or more of three things: 1. A call for all Americans to agree with them and become fellow leftists. 2. A nice-sounding cover for their left-wing policies. 3. A way to further their demonizing of the Bush administration as 'divisive.' [. . .]

"How exactly are Mr. Obama's left-wing political positions any less 'divisive' than President Bush's right-wing positions? [. . .]

"The next time Sen. Obama speaks with his usual passion and eloquence about his desire to unite Americans, someone must ask him two questions: Why are your left-wing positions any less divisive than President Bush's right-wing positions? And if you are so committed to uniting Americans, why did you vote against declaring English our national, i.e., our unifying, language? Without compelling answers, Sen. Obama's calls for American unity are no more than calls to unite around his politics and him."

-- "Obama's Desire for a United America Isn't Possible," by Dennis Prager, The Washington Times National Weekly Edition, January 14, 2008, page 32. Address: 3600 New York Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20002. E-mail. Website.

Dealing with Poverty
Posted here for 1-28-08

"[B]ack in 2000 every head of state in the world agreed to the UN's Millennium Declaration which calls for the end of poverty by the year 2015. There, the world's leaders agreed to put up the money for UN poverty programs. Now the UN is working to collect. [. . .]

"How can it be that the Republican Party, which once advocated free enterprise, limited government and individual liberty, could fall for such a wealth redistribution scheme[? . . .]

"Eradication of poverty is certainly a noble cause. People throughout the world are suffering from hunger, poor health and filthy water. The number of poor in the world is growing higher each year. There is no doubt that something must be done.

"Of course, there are thousands of efforts in the world aimed at eradicating poverty or feeding and clothing the poor. From churches to charitable organizations to local, state, federal and international government programs, billions of dollars are collected and presumably distributed to the poor.

"Yet, every day we have more poor. Why? Because none of these efforts focus[es] on the source of poverty. None of them take[s] steps to reverse the situation and help the poor to help themselves. [. . .]

"Poverty, as run by the international poverty cartel headquartered in the United Nations, is big business. As in almost every case where there is unlimited cash and little accountability by mindless, faceless bureaucrats and all-powerful potentates, corruption, embezzlement, exorbitant salaries and inside procurement deals fatten the pockets of a few and leave the poor hungry and left out. [. . .]

"As Economist Walter Williams points out, 'Extensive government control, weak property rights and government corruption almost guarantee poverty.' Those three factors are almost universal in United Nations' anti-poverty programs and the very reasons why none of [the UN's] programs will ever achieve the goal of eradicating poverty. [. . .]

"There are two conflicting philosophies of governing in the world. One, the American view, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence, states that all people have rights they are born with and that government's main job is to protect those rights at all costs. America's founding document says that these rights are forever and unquestioned. It is the foundation of human freedom.

"The other view says that government decides the rights we should have, professing that all such rights give way to an unidentified common good whenever the situation is warranted. That means that all so-called rights are subject to the whim of whatever gang is currently in power. This is the position promoted in the UN's Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, Article 29, section (3) of the document says, 'These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.'"

-- "GOP Endorses Life-Long Bread Lines," by Tom DeWeese, The DeWeese Report, October 2007, pages 1-2, 7, published by the American Policy Center, 13873 Park Center Road, #316, Herndon, Virginia 20171. Phone: 703-925-0881. Fax: 703-925-0991. E-mail. Website.

Corny Idea
Posted here for 1-21-08

"[I]f ethanol were as wondrous as its proponents claim, it wouldn't need to be lavishly underwritten by the government. The truth is that the latest energy legislation and the continued push for ethanol by the government-backed moonshiners have much less to do with reality and much more to do with politics. The ethanol craze brushes aside some mighty pertinent facts: it mandates the use of a fuel that currently costs more than gasoline, drives up food prices, negatively impacts the environment, and does little or nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. [. . .]

"Professor David Pimental of Cornell has noted that it requires '30 percent more energy oil equivalents to produce a gallon of ethanol than you actually get out, and it causes a lot of severe environmental problems. It takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. Corn causes more soil erosion than any other crop grown in the nation. It uses more insecticides, herbicides and N [nitrogen] fertilizer than any other crop grown in the nation.'

"The government's own figures put the lie to the claim that ethanol is competitive with gasoline. A 2005 report by the Agriculture Department shows the production cost of a gallon of corn ethanol is $2.53, several times that for gasoline. [. . .]

"Corn is the most subsidized crop in the country. Yet ethanol's effect on food supplies has been counterproductive. According to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), if biofuels do expand as currently projected, that would drive up the worldwide price of corn by 26 percent: if production were to double, the corn price will rise by 72 percent. [. . .]

"The more that Washington is involved in the marketplace, the worse things will become. Americans used to solve problems; today, more often than not, we subsidize them."

-- "Subsidizing Moonshine," by William P. Hoar, The New American, January 7, 2008, pages 42-43. Published by American Opinion Publishing Incorporated, 770 Westhill Boulevard, Appleton, Wisconsin 54914. Phone: 920-749-3784. Fax: 920-749-3785. E-mail. Website.

Overthrowing Sovereignty
Posted here for 1-14-08

"It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) Summit in Montebello, Canada in August. The three amigos, Bush, Harper and Calderon, finalized and released the 'North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza.'

"The 'Plan' (that's what they call it, with a capital P) is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable 'North American' bureaucrats.

"This idea was launched on September 14, 2005 when Bush announced the 'International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.' He was then speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. [. . .]

"This year's SPP summit [2007] in Canada morphed the Influenza Partnership into the North American Plan. Now we discover that the Plan is not only about combating a flu epidemic but is far-reaching in seeking control over U.S. citizens and public policy during an epidemic. [. . .]

"The Plan sets up a 'senior level Coordinating Body to facilitate the effective planning and preparedness within North America for a possible outbreak of avian and/or human pandemic influenza under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).' The Plan identifies this SPP Coordinating Body as 'decision-makers.'

"The Plan then (ungrammatically) states: 'The chair of the SPP Coordinating Body will rotate between each national authority on a yearly basis.' A foreigner will be the 'decision-maker' for Americans in two out of every three years. [. . .]

"Will this foreign-headed Coordinating Body respect the First Amendment 'right of the people peaceably to assemble'? Or will the rules of the Plan, SPP, WHO, IOE, WTO, and NAFTA take precedence? [. . .]

"The defense of our sovereignty and independence demands action by Americans now -- before it's too late."

-- The Phyllis Schlafly Report, October 2007, pages 1, 4. Address: PO Box 618, Alton, Illinois 62002. E-mail. Website.

The Cost of Living
Posted here for 1-7-08

"How does the federal government manipulate inflation numbers?

"The Consumer Price Index, or CPI, is the central statistic the federal government uses to calculate inflation.

The CPI is a complex government statistic that was introduced in the 1920s to track the market cost of a 'basket of goods and services.'

"Beginning during the Carter administration, federal economists cleverly redefined the CPI, with the goal of removing from the index expensive items, including food and energy, that would push the CPI higher. [. . .]

"When removing expensive items from the CPI market basket of goods and services was not enough to depress inflation numbers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics innovated even more, changing the 'weighted factors' used in calculating CPI statistics, so the results end up under-reporting the true inflation people experience in everyday living. [. .]

"[C]urrent Social Security payments are roughly half of what they should be if the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics reported the Consumer Price Index honestly. [. . .]

"[O]ne of [Alan] Greenspan's manipulations of the CPI involved the consideration that when steak got too expensive, the consumer would substitute hamburger for the steak. So, Greenspan argued, the inflation measure should reflect the costs of buying hamburger, not steak. [. . .]

"[Econometrician John] Williams commented, '[The] cost of living was being replaced by the cost of survival.' [. . .]

"Williams calculates that the manipulations of the CPI index cause inflation to be under-reported by as much as 7 percent. [. . .]

"The Greenspan years can be characterized as a strategy of pretending inflation didn't exist to avoid the adverse political consequences of being honest and facing the true cost-of-living music. [. .]

"So, when you wonder why food and gasoline cost so much when the government says inflation is low, just remember: You are not being told the truth -- something you probably figured out long ago, just by going to the supermarket and the gas station."

-- "If Inflation Is Low, How Come Food and Energy Cost So Much," by Jerome R. Corsi, Whistleblower magazine, November 2007, pages 6-7, 42. Address: PO Box 2450, Fair Oaks, California 95628. Phone: 916-852-6300. Fax: 916-852-6302. Website.