Considerettes

Actually, this is right on cue. One of the “canaries in the coal mine” for totalitarianism is the fleeing of those with means and education.

For the past eight years, rich Venezuelans have been trickling out of the country, spooked by the socialist bluster of their populist President, Hugo Chávez. But since being inaugurated for his third term in January, Mr Chávez’s talk has begun turning into substance, with an evermore radical series of moves to transform Venezuela into the world’s first “21st-century socialist state”. Now the super-rich are being joined by middle-class professionals and, increasingly, families.

At the US Embassy, citizenship claims and visa enquiries have doubled since January. A Canadian job fair, with a capacity of 500, was swamped by a crowd of 1,500. Every morning snaking queues form outside the embassies of Australia, Spain and Portugal to inquire about emigration there.

My expectation is that this will increase as more things like closing RCTV happen.

Hat tip: The Anchoress

Technorati Tags: Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, socialism

Popularity: 10% [?]

The economic growth in Q1 of this year was paltry.

The economy nearly stalled in the first quarter with growth slowing to a pace of just 0.6 percent. That was the worst three-month showing in over four years.

Chris at AMERICABlog quickly blames it on “GOP policies”. Fair enough, only if you credited GOP policies for this:

The economy’s 0.6 percent growth rate in the opening quarter of this year marked a big loss of momentum from the 2.5 percent pace logged in the final quarter of last year.

If not, blaming Republicans now is just disingenuous.

Chris, still cherry-picking, notes, “As a side note to the GOP, France was twice this number.” But let’s not forget that the 2.5% growth in Q4 beat France’s annual growth of 2%. And if you prefer France’s unemployment rate of 8.7%, feel free to move there. Or vote Democrat.

Technorati Tags: economy, AMERICABlog, France, unemployment

Popularity: 8% [?]

The right to freely exercise one’s religion outside of the 4 walls of a place of worship was affirmed by the Texas legislature. It’s unfortunate that it had to be affirmed at all, but in today’s church-and-state climate, it’s necessary.

The House embraced legislation Monday that seeks to clarify the rights of Texas public school students to offer public prayers at football games or graduation, hand out religious messages or hold religious meetings during the school day if they want.

Supporters said the Schoolchildren’s Religious Liberties Act, which passed on a 110-33 vote, would protect districts from lawsuits by setting guidelines for students’ religious expression while protecting students from being admonished, for example, if they talk about Jesus in an assignment about Easter.

You can’t keep people insulated from each other, and this bill takes the common sense step of acknowledging that.

“Freedom of religion should not be taken as freedom from religion,” Gov. Rick Perry said. “This was a vote for tolerance of diverse views in our education system so that students are not admonished for wishing a soldier overseas a ‘Merry Christmas’ or for any other harmless forms of expression.”

Precisely. The “diversity” crowd is the very group trying to remove diversity in the public square.

The bill has its opponents, who, as usual, use exaggerated language when describing religious speech.

“The intent of this bill is to enable people to impose their religious beliefs on people, and I stand four-square against that,” said Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, who is a Quaker.

“I was one of those students of a minority religion who was frequently subjected to unwanted … advice and insults when I was in the public schools. I do not believe the intent of the author [to avoid lawsuits]. I believe the intent of the author is to facilitate imposing certain religious values on students regardless of their religious faith.”

Sorry, but freedom from getting unwanted advice is not in the US Constitution. Those who insult you because of your faith should be punished by their parents or, for adults, marginalized, but it’s still not a legal issue, and it doesn’t mean that because some kids were mean to you in school that now all kids must be silenced on religious issues. Bathwater, meet baby.

And rather than dream up your own view of what the bill’s author intended, let’s just ask him.

Author Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land, said repeatedly that the bill “does not allow anything that isn’t in the current law.”

What the bill does is specify that “a school district shall treat a student’s voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint, if any, on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner the district treats a student’s voluntary expression of a secular or other viewpoint” as long as the expression isn’t obscene or vulgar and doesn’t discriminate against homosexuals or religious beliefs.

Further, the bill says students may not be penalized for expressing religious views in classwork, and they may organize religious meetings and use school facilities like any noncurricular group.

Not sure why homosexuality was specifically singled out, but this is a good step in the right direction.

Plano ISD has been at the center of this debate since 2003, when school officials told a student he could not hand out candy cane pens with a religious message during a holiday party.

Rep. Burnam can hand-wring all he wants about how hearing religious speech is somehow imposing values onto him (is he that impressionable?), but if we can’t give away pens in the name of religious freedom, things really are upside down.

Technorati Tags: religious freedom, Texas, Charlie Howard, Rick Perry, Lon Burnam, church and state, First Amendment, education

Popularity: 13% [?]

Shire Network News #91 has been released. The feature interview is with Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch, talking about Farfur the Mouse, which is what my segment was about last week. (I got this week off.) Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Popularity: 5% [?]

It raises all boats, including, and especially, the poorest. (Via Captain Ed, because I don’t have a WSJ subscription.)

It’s been a rough week for John Edwards, and now comes more bad news for his “two Americas” campaign theme. A new study by the Congressional Budget Office says the poor have been getting less poor. On average, CBO found that low-wage households with children had incomes after inflation that were more than one-third higher in 2005 than in 1991.

The CBO results don’t fit the prevailing media stereotype of the U.S. economy as a richer take all affair — which may explain why you haven’t read about them. Among all families with children, the poorest fifth had the fastest overall earnings growth over the 15 years measured. (See the nearby chart.) The poorest even had higher earnings growth than the richest 20%. The earnings of these poor households are about 80% higher today than in the early 1990s.

A vibrant economy for all is a better long-term solution. Government taking a smaller percentage of peoples’ earnings give the poor more to spend and encourages investment by the rich which creates jobs. When government doesn’t encourage welfare, the poor, indeed, work, which is inherently better.

What happened? CBO says the main causes of this low-income earnings surge have been a combination of welfare reform, expansion of the earned income tax credit and wage gains from a tight labor market, especially in the late stages of the 1990s expansion. Though cash welfare fell as a share of overall income (which includes government benefits), earnings from work climbed sharply as the 1996 welfare reform pushed at least one family breadwinner into the job market.

Earnings growth tapered off as the economy slowed in the early part of this decade, but earnings for low-income families have still nearly doubled in the years since welfare reform became law. Some two million welfare mothers have left the dole for jobs since the mid-1990s. Far from being a disaster for the poor, as most on the left claimed when it was debated, welfare reform has proven to be a boon.

Far from throwing families out on the streets, welfare reform encouraged work. The work was there because the richer folks had money to start businesses or invest in them. The moral advantage of work over hand-outs should be self-evident. That doesn’t mean there should be no hand-outs, but policies that give families little incentive to work do not help them in the long run, no matter how it makes the policy makers feel in the short run.

More stats are discussed by the Captain.

Technorati Tags: Congressional Budget Office, economy, John Edwards, taxes, welfare reform, Ed Morrissey

Popularity: 6% [?]

“template of Good Bye Mail” [#7 on Google]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Hugo Chavez isn’t officially “President For Life”, but the permission he has for ruling outside Venezuela’s legislative body and his crackdown on dissent shows he’s acting like one.

Tens of thousands of protesters on Saturday denounced President Hugo Chavez’s plans to close an opposition television channel, accusing their leader of maiming Venezuelan democracy as he forges a socialist state.

Chavez says RCTV, the country’s oldest private broadcaster, supported a bungled coup against him in 2002. He has had a long-running battle with opposition television stations, calling them “horsemen of the apocalypse.”

“Let us defend democracy, let us defend freedom, let us defend free independent media such as RCTV,” RCTV’s managing director, Marcel Garnier, told demonstrators in Caracas.

The majority that voted him in is now getting a taste of what real dictatorship is like. Buyer’s remorse is setting in.

Chavez, re-elected by a landslide last year, still enjoys support of about 60 percent of the public on the back of massive social spending. But a leading pollster has also found a majority of Venezuelans oppose the closure of RCTV.

Datanalisis found almost 70 percent of Venezuelans would rather RCTV kept broadcasting, but worried more about the loss of their favorite soap operas than free speech.

RCTV has been showing a nostalgic collection of clips from comedies, soap operas and Christmas specials that have been part of life in the Caribbean country since it started transmission in 1953.

“It is like losing a close relative,” said Renaldo Gonzalez, a student at the protest, whose family members have worked at RCTV as actors, producers and directors.

Do Venezuelan’s really aspire to be like Cuba? It’s a few steps backward. Hopefully, this will wake up the populace, even if their concept of free speech comes mostly from which entertainment shows are available.

Technorati Tags: Hugo Chavez, Venezuela

Popularity: 6% [?]

Shire Network News #90 has been released. The feature interview this week is with filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney, whose documentary, “Indoctrinate U”, examines the extent of political bias in American higher education. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary segment, complete with links.

Paul Harvey has a phrase he uses to introduce some of his news stories. “Self-government without self-control is self-defeating.” I think that phrase fits quite well with this story.

Earlier this month, the German magazine “Der Spiegel” reported that the Hamas-backed al-Aqsa TV station was broadcasting a new children’s show into the Palestinian territories. It involved an obvious copy of Mickey Mouse, named “Farfur” which means “butterfly”, and a little girl named Saraa, and is called “Tomorrow’s Pioneers”. What brought this innocent-sounding show to the attention of the world was that its two loveable characters were engaged in cutesy things like showing how to hold an AK-47 and inciting violence against Israel and America. How positively charming!

Later on, Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said the program had been yanked and was “under review”. He complained that “some American television stations” were still covering the story after it was supposedly resolved. The mouse, named “Butterfly”, was no longer on the air.

Except that wasn’t the case. Hamas announced that it would defy Barghouti’s request and show the mouse, named “Butterfly”, according to schedule. Barghouti then decided that this “review” would take place on the air, while he watched the show. Recently, Fathi Hammad, Chairman of the television station defended the program saying it didn’t violate any moral or professional standard, and that it would not be withdrawn, nor would its content be modified.

So to recap: Saraa and her friend Farfur the Mouse, or Butterfly, tell kids how Islam will militarily conquer the world, on a TV station owned by Hamas. Israel reacts. The Palestinian government, who’s senior partner is Hamas, says that they’ll take it off the air and review it, while complaining that this is a non-story. Hamas defies its own government and continues to run the show, thus making this non-story a story. The Palestinian government, trying not to look irrelevant, says, “Well, OK, but it’s still under review”, but the TV station continues to demonstrate that the government is, in fact, irrelevant.

Self-government without self-control is self-defeating. And sometimes becomes self-parody.

This isn’t an isolated incident. “The Children’s Club” was another program in this vein, that mimicked “Sesame Street” but included kids shouting for jihad against Israel and one little girl singing, “”When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber.”

“Hey kids, today we’re going over to the trash can of Schlomoe the Grouch and teach him a lesson. After that, we’ll find our 72 vir…er…playmates.”

And there have been others. If Israel were doing this, there’d be a UN resolution. In the meantime, the mouse called “Butterfly” merrily continues to influence the next generation of jihadis.

I’d have more to say, but I’m currently reading “The Protocols of the Muppets of Zion”, and I’m just getting to the chapter on Miss Piggy. Should be interesting.

Back to you, Tom.

Technorati Tags: Shire Network News, Evan Coyne Maloney, Hamas, Farfur, Mustafa Barghouti, Tomorrow’s Pioneers, Fathi Hammad

Popularity: 11% [?]

The BBC reports on claims that we’re mentally torturing inmates at Gitmo.

US detainee ‘mentally tortured’

A Pakistani-born US resident detained at Guantanamo Bay has said he was “mentally tortured” there, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.

Majid Khan, who has been accused of planning to blow up petrol stations in the US, also described how he tried to commit suicide by chewing on an artery.

After tales of how Mr. Kahn denies being an enemy, the last 3 paragraphs of the story described this awful “mental torture”.

Mr Khan complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation.

This led him to attempt to chew through his artery twice, Mr Khan said.

Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of “cheap, branded, unscented soap”, the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that “hardly bounce”.

Oh, the ever-luvin’ humanity. And this is what passes for “news” from the BBC. You can’t just scan the headlines at the BBC; they may say the exact opposite of the truth. No mention in the headline that this was just a “claim” of mental torture.

And is this really newsworthy; a guy at Gitmo proclaiming his innocence while claiming that cheap soap and noisy fans are mental torture? It is to the BBC, apparently. Wild claims of torture where there is none are featured on their “Americas” front page. It has about as much validity as the latest UFO conspiracy theory, but that doesn’t make the front page.

It’s still all about the narrative.

Technorati Tags: mental torture, BBC, media bias, Majid Khan, Guantanimo Bay

Popularity: 6% [?]

The World Climate Report blog notes a report about the warming temperatures on Neptune, and how closely they correlate with Earth’s changes.

Neptune is the planet farthest from the Sun (Pluto is now considered only a dwarf planet), Neptune is the planet farthest from the Earth, and to our knowledge, there has been absolutely no industrialization out at Neptune in recent centuries. There has been no recent build-up of greenhouse gases there, no deforestation, no rapid urbanization, no increase in contrails from jet airplanes, and no increase in ozone in the low atmosphere; recent changes at Neptune could never be blamed on any human influence. Incredibly, an article has appeared in a recent issue of Geophysical Research Letters showing a stunning relationship between the solar output, Neptune’s brightness, and heaven forbid, the temperature of the Earth.

Click on the link to find graphs of how changes in Neptune’s temperature, Earth’s temperature, and the Sun’s output are strangely similar; about a 90% correlation.

Technorati Tags: global warming, neptune, solar warming, Geophysical Research Letters

Popularity: 12% [?]

Jerry Falwell has died at the age of 73. Love him or hate him, he did have a huge impact on US politics; US News named him one of the 25 most influential people in America in 1983.

Put a person in front of a camera long enough, and you’re sure to get fodder for plenty of Saturday Night Live skits. Falwell was certainly no exception to that, and did his share of apologizing for comments he made. Little is typically noted about what he did that didn’t cause a stir–schools, homes for unwed mothers, a home for alcoholics–but those weren’t headline-grabbing.

Falwell’s fumbles were sometimes notable, sometimes infamous (the Tinky-Winky incident, and where he placed blame for 9/11, for examples), but he did get many conservative Christians out of the closet, so to speak, and get them involved in politics.

He was the go-to guy for many media networks whenever a Christian perspective was needed, giving the impression of a monolithic interest group that all thought like him. That’s more a reflection on lazy journalists than it is on Falwell, but he handled them with aplomb, virtually always with a smile.

(And now that he’s gone, what’ll the MSM do for “Christian reaction”? Pat Robertson, clear your calendar. >shudder<)

Technorati Tags: Jerry Falwell, Moral Majority, Pat Robertson

Popularity: 6% [?]

While some schools are showing Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” without rebuttal, a university class is demonstrating that perhaps the global warming alarmists can’t handle balance.

Nick Shipley, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University freshman, had just spent a week of classes watching two films with polar-opposite conclusions about global warming.

“After watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ I was relatively convinced,” Shipley said one day last month in class. “(Al Gore) did a good job in presenting his points very methodically one after the other. They all build up to essentially prove his point.

“After watching ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,’ my thinking completely changed,” he said. “I kind of did a complete flip-flop.”

It appears that the reason we have more global warming alarmists, especially on college campuses, is that the liberal activists and media are simply not…well….fair and balanced.

To be fair, both sides do their share of exaggeration, but both sides should still be allowed evaluation.

[James] Wanliss [space physicist who teaches the class] said he doesn’t necessarily subscribe to either film, but believes his students — and the public — should remain skeptical of theories such as Gore’s explanation of global warming.

Other Embry-Riddle scientists are less outspoken than Wanliss, but one — John Olivero, professor and chairman of the department of physical science — allowed that skepticism is an essential tool of the scientific method.

“Science lives with internal conflict all the time,” Olivero said. “Part of what we have to do is continually challenge each other.”

That process, they say, leads scientists closer to truths that may be elusive for lifetimes.

The truths of global warming are, if not inconvenient, incomprehensible, Wanliss argues.

“The atmosphere is incredibly complicated, and we know very little about it,” he said. “We are studying a system which is so big . . . we don’t know what all the variables are.”

Pointing to quotes in magazine articles, Wanliss says Gore and the producers of the “Swindle” film are purposefully overstating their science as a means to a political end.

And yet the Left talks of their foes in Holocaust-denial terms. The stifling of dissent in Al Gore’s America.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change, Al Gore, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, James Wanliss, John Olivero

Popularity: 7% [?]

Why are Katie Couric’s ratings in the tank? Linda Mason, CBS News’ Senior Vice President for Standards and Special Projects has a thought during this interview.

Linda Mason: I’m just surprised at how, almost 30 years after I worked on the “Evening News” as the first woman producer, that Katie is having such a tough time being accepted by the public, which seems to prefer the news from white guys, and now that Charlie’s doing so well, from older white guys. I guess they want the reassurance of a Walter Cronkite.

So why, then, has CBS been in 3rd place since the mid 90s? Couric didn’t start that trend. Neither did she start the trend of a ratings dive. That’s been going on for at least a quarter century.

So blame the viewers. Suggest sexism and racism. Keeps you from having to answer the hard questions.

Technorati Tags: CBS, evening news, Linda Mason, media bias, Katie Couric, Walter Cronkite

Popularity: 6% [?]

With a hat tip to Clayton Cramer, a not-so-hypothetical question. If 3 retired generals (out of several thousand) come out against the war, and if almost 3,000 active-duty military come out asking for full support and full funding and don’t want to retreat, are both these items newsworthy?

If you said Yes to the first part and No to the second part, you too could work for CNN or just about any other mainstream media outlet. (Except Fox News, of course. They covered both news items.) As of this posting, two days after the presentation to Congress, CNN has no mention at all of the “Appeal for Courage”. Were it not for blog coverage, this might well have been swept under the rug by a media for whom this doesn’t fit the narrative.

As John Hinderaker notes at Power Line, this is sort of a lab experiment. And the media failed, as is their habit.

Click here for more details on this petition.

Technorati Tags: Appeal for Courage, CNN, media bias, Fox News, Clayton Cramer, John Hinderaker

Popularity: 12% [?]

That’s the bumper sticker that Linda Whitlock used to have on her car. She’s got a great article on the socialization of homeschool kids, including her grandchildren. OK, she may have a conflict of interest, but she still makes great points.

Technorati Tags: Linda Whitlock, homeschooling, education, socialization

Popularity: 20% [?]