ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

A tag team of deception.HT Pam Key at TheBlaze.

'Gasland' filmmaker plans shoot in Washington Co.

Up to 50 people were arrested Monday in Swaziland, the day before a planned protest to call attention to human rights abuses in Africa's last absolute monarchy, activists said.

George Soros' Open Society Institute Loses Domain Dispute
Domain Name Wire (blog)
Open Society Institute, a think tank and foundation founded by billionaire George Soros, has lost a domain name dispute over the domain OpenSociety.org. ...

So sayeth Cynthia Tucker, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's political columnist. She was a guest on "The Chris Matthew's Show," Sunday.

Talk is cheap, but it can cost. Three takes on the matter, with apologies in advance for the somewhat rambling nature of what follows:

First, let's consider the observations of Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, writing in the Washington Examiner, concerning the rantings of James Lee, the charming fellow who took hostages at the Discovery Channel's offices:

In contemporary America, no respectable person would advocate, say, the involuntary sterilization of blacks or Jews. Why, then, should it be any more respectable to advocate the involuntary sterilization of everyone? Or even of those who cause “social deterioration?”

Likewise, references to particular ethnic or religious groups as “viruses” or “cancers” in need of extirpation are socially unacceptable, triggering immediate thoughts of genocide and mass murder.

Why, then, should it be acceptable to refer to all humanity in this fashion? Does widening the circle of eliminationist rhetoric somehow make it better?

Meanwhile, John Hinderaker at Powerline ponders the deep thoughts of Karel de Gucht, the European Trade Commissioner, who had offered the following:


On Thursday, with the Middle East peace process in the news, Mr. De Gucht picked yet another fight. Jews, he told Belgian radio, have a "belief" that they are "always right." He described his frustration at debating the Middle East because "it is not easy even with a moderate Jew to have a conversation."

He continued: "Don't underestimate the power of the Jewish lobby in the capital. That is best organized lobby in the states. And they have an influence on politicians, Republicans and Democrats."

Very nice. As Hinderaker observes, this led to criticism, which lead to the usual non-apology apology from de Gucht:

"I gave an interview yesterday to the Flemish radio. I was also asked about the Middle East peace talks. I gave my personal point of view. I regret that the comments that I made have been interpreted in a sense that I did not intend. I did not mean in any possible way to cause offense or stigmatize the Jewish Community. I want to make clear that anti-Semitism has no place in today's world and is fundamentally against our European values."
A hanging curveball, that statement. Hinderaker then smashes the hanging curve ball deep into the bleachers:

I suppose Jews can be excused for questioning whether history supports the claim that anti-Semitism is "fundamentally against...European values."
But then Hinderaker makes an observation that doesn't necessarily follow:

For whatever reason, we don't seem to see the same resurgence in the U.S. that is happening in Europe. I would say with considerably more confidence that anti-Semitism is fundamentally against American values.

This is why Pat Buchanan and Jesse Jackson never have any difficulty getting air time on CNN, of course. But I digress

Here's the thing. I'm guessing that Reynolds had his tongue somewhat in cheek when he wrote his piece for the Examiner. It's a goof on the notion that somehow conservative commenters are responsible for any violence that happens when a crazy person acts crazy. Both Lee and Ted Kaczynski, a/k/a the Unabomber, were fans of Al Gore. That doesn't make Al Gore responsible for what they did, though.

De Gucht is a different matter, because he wields actual power. As does John Holdren, the man Barack Obama appointed as his "science czar." As Reynolds notes:

[O]ne need only look to the writings of President Obama’s “science czar,” John Holdren to find something similar. Seeing humanity as destructive, Holdren wrote in favor of forced abortion and putting sterilizing agents in the drinking water, and in particular of sterilizing people who cause “social deterioration.”

And here is the serious point Reynolds wants to make. No one wants "social deterioration," of course. The key is looking back at what (or who) is asserted to cause "social deterioration." And equally important is asking hard questions. Why does John Holdren believe what he believes? And an even better question -- why would he have the President's ear?

Meanwhile, our good friend Gino wrote something very interesting on his blog:

In my last discussion, I intentionally self-Godwined.

Trying to compare an illegal alien dishwasher to a convicted murderer, and then using this comparison to justifying taking from his innocent children the only grace the roulette wheel of life may ever offer them, was just more than this two-fingered typist (and mediocre intellect) serving as your host was able to deal with while keeping his honor intact.

Rather than continue, I turned the knife and thrust backward.

You win.

A little background: Gino had an earlier post up about the plight of "anchor babies," children born in the United States of parents in the country illegally. Gino decries (rightly, in my view) the idea that a kid who has grown up in the United States could end up being deported to the country of his parent's origin, especially if the child knows nothing of that country. Gino also has a pretty contentious comments section and because he became so disgusted with some of the comments, he played the Hitler card, which of course pretty much ended the thread.

I understand why Gino did this -- reading through the comments on his post, I picture him pacing the floor like Popeye, saying "that's all I can stand, I can't stand no more." And therein lies the challenge we face. Those who would prefer to silence us, those who are motivated by hatred and anger, want us to give up. Facing the provocations every damned day wears on a person. It's unpleasant as hell.

If I could do it, I'd never write about politics. But as long as there are people like de Gucht and Holdren out there, you have to keep up the fight. Gino called off a fight on his blog because he wanted to fight another day. Whether we choose to engage or not, we are involved.

Today is Labor Day – the day when Union members pat themselves on the back for another year of doing their jobs and getting paid for it, and when the rest of us hit the picnic grounds and ponder buying weatherstripping. And this year, the time when the political season starts to reach out to people [...]

As most Americans cook out and celebrate Labor Day weekend, Florida GOP Senate nominee Marco Rubio is grieving the loss of this father. Rubio's statement on his dad's passing is a moving tribute:"My father knew hard...

Last Friday, I returned from Chihuahua, Mexico after spending a week there on business. The American Airlines flight from Chihuahua to Dallas was delayed by about forty minutes because......the crew didn't arrive at the airport on time. This excuse didn't sit well with my fellow passengers because nearly every one of us was trying to make a connecting flight in Dallas. And it just seems like a Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03781053410876242483noreply@blogger.com

Charting and predicting the continuum of DFL chanting points. Last Week: “Where is Emmer’s plan?” This Afternoon: “OK, where is the rest of Emmer’s plan?” A Few Weeks From Now: “Where is the last little bit of Emmer’s plan?” Novenber 3: “Where’s Mark Dayton?”

It’s been about two months since the DFL started chanting “Where’s Emmer’s Plan?” As I quite correctly pointed out in June, it’d have been stupid of Tom Emmer to release a plan at a point in the campaign when only wonks, journos and political junkies care about it.  The average, non-aligned voter doesn’t care about politics [...]

This Labor Day marks a milestone in the history of the U.S. union movement. It is the first Labor Day on which a majority of union members in United States work for the government. In January the Department of Labor reported that union membership in government has overtaken that in the private sector. Three times as many union members work in the Post Office as in the entire domestic auto industry. The face of the union movement is not a worker on the assembly line but a clerk at the DMV.

This is a dramatic shift for the union movement. The early trade unionists did not believe that unions had a place in government. They believed the purpose of unions was to redistribute business profits from owners to workers … and the government makes no profits.  Not until the 1960s did unionizing government employees become widespread. Now government employees make up 52 percent of all union members.

So what? Why should Americans care if unions are now dominated by workers who get their paychecks from governments, instead of workers who get their paychecks from private firms? There’s one simple reason: private firms face competition; governments don’t.

Collective bargaining, the anti-trust exemption at the heart the labor movement’s power, was created to help workers seize their “fair share” of business profits. But if a union ends up extracting a contract from a private firm that eats up too much of the profits, then that firm will be unable to reinvest those resources and will lose out to competitors. But when a union extracts a generous contract from a government, there is no check on that spending. Instead of being forced out by more efficient competitors, the government just raises taxes.

The shift from private to public sector has fundamentally changed organized labor’s priorities. Unions used to support policies that would help their private sector employers grow. But now that they are largely dependent on the government, the only growth that unions are interested in is the growth of government. So unions push for tax increases across the country. Consider recent union activism:

• Illinois. Unions want state lawmakers to increase the state income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent and to expand the sales tax to cover some services. In April 2010 they organized rallies of government workers outside the state capitol shouting “Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!” At that rally, a government union member was caught on camera chanting “Where’s the money?” and “Give up the bucks!”
• Montana. The Montana teachers union openly sees itself as a supporter of tax and spend politics. Its President boasts, “Were it not for us almost any one of the … anti-tax and spend ballot issues proposed in the last 25 years would have passed.”
• New Mexico. Unions lobbied the state’s legislature to raise taxes to deal with its budget deficit. The union got its wish, but it was not the wealthy who paid – the legislature imposed a 2 percent sales tax on food.
• Washington state. Washington state has no income tax, and unions want to change that. They have placed an initiative on the November ballot creating a state income tax and are among the top donors to the campaign to pass it.

Government unions are the backbone of the Obama dependency economy. Taxpayers should not have to subsidize union campaigns, much less those that call for tax increases. At the very least Congress should end the automatic payroll deduction of union dues.

They said (with a nod to Glenn Reynolds) that if we voted for John McCain, Americans would lose their health insurance coverage. And they were right! All but two health insurance companies have withdrawn from offering maternity benefits. Only a handful of companies will still write “child only” health insurance plans. As of this date, it is almost impossible [...]

India’s automated trading platforms to match equity buy and sell orders with the best prices on the two major exchanges will help increase turnover by boosting investor confidence, according to Credit Suisse Group AG.

Mayan Round / Long Count
Calendar3114 BC   According to the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Mayan Long Count Calendar started. A proleptic calendar is one which is extended backwards to establish dates, from the date the Calendar is created, instead of the more customary direction of calendars going forwards chronologically. Contrary to the popular myth that the Mayan calendar predicts some cataclysmic end of the world on December 21, 2012, it is in fact simply the beginning of the next calendar calculation period, identified as the 14th "b'ak'tun' in using the Mayan round calendar.

Coin showing likeness of
losing Pagan Western
Roman Emperor EugeniusCoin showing likeness of
winning Christian Eastern
Roman Emperor Theodosius I394   The Christian Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius I defeats and kills the pagan  Western Roman Emperor Eugenius and his Frankish magister militum Arbogast, at the Frigidus River in what is modern Slovenia.  The battle was significant for two reasons; one, it unified the Roman Empire again as one, instead of East and West, and two, it allowed Theodosius successfully to Christianize the entire Roe man Empire, making Christianity the only official Roman Empire religion.

1492   Christopher Columbus sails from La Gomera in the Canary Islands, his final port of call before crossing the Atlantic 'Ocean blue' for the first time.

1522    The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, returns to Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world.

Tyndale's execution1536    Death of William Tyndale, Protestant bible translator (b. c.1494)  Tyndale was a 16th century scholar; his expertise was in translation.  Like his predecessors, Luther and Erasmus, who made translations of the Bible available to non-clergy. Luther translated the Bible into German; Erasmus made the new testament available in Greek. Tyndale in turn translated the Bible into English, and had it printed using the new printing press technology.  In making the Bible more directly accessible, Tyndale offended the perogatives of the Roman Catholic Church AND the Anglican Church, which as the official state religion was backed up by the power and authority of the state.  The Church did not want the Bible available in the vernacular.   Cardinal Wolsey called Tyndale a heretic.  Sir Thomas Moore called him a heretic AND a traitor. Not content to stop there, Tyndale wrote a treatise in 1530 that took issue with the divorce of Henry the VIII for violating scrptural law prohibitions.  Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned in Belgium, near Brussels by Church authorities - because they could do that.  He was tried in 1536 for heresy, found guilty, strangled and burned at the stake - which was a slightly nicer sentence than being burned at the stake while still alive.  Ironically, four years after Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible, King Henry VIII had four translation of the Bible published in England, including the official 'Great Bible' which was to be read aloud in Anglican church service - based on Tyndale's translation. In 1611, Tyndale's translation was widely used as the foundational basis for the King James Bible translation; some estimates put around 75% of the Old Testament as Tyndale's work; and nearly 85% of the New Testament as his translation. Tyndale's experience provides an interesting perspective to freedom of religion, official approval of faith, and the vagaries of public opinion towards different religious ideas and practice. 

1620   The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America.

1628   The Puritans settle Salem, which will later become part of Massachusetts Bay Colony.


1634   Thirty Years' War: In the Battle of Nördlingen the Catholic Imperial army defeats Protestant armies of Sweden and Germany.

1757   Birth of Marquis de Lafayette, French soldier and statesman, American Revolutionary War hero (d. 1834)

1766   Birth of John Dalton, British chemist, meteorologist, and physicist (d. 1844), early pioneer in modern atomic theory, and color blindness - a problem for Dalton himself.  Dalton's accomplishments are the more remarkable because, as a Quaker, or 'dissenter', he was barred from attending or teaching at English Universities.  Dalton was a prestigious scientist in his own time, a member of both the English Royal Society and the French Academie des Sciences.

1870   Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally after 1807.

Schreck as silent film
vampire villain, Nosferatu1879    Birth of Max Schreck, German actor (d. 1936) of stage and both silent and sound films.  He is most famous for his role as Nosferatu in the F. W. Murnau film of the same name. Appropriately, Schreck in Middle High German means 'fright' or 'terror', but as an actor he performed a range of roles, including comedy.

Flying Tigers logo1893  Birth of Lieutenant General Claire Chennault, American pilot (d. 1958), founder and commander of the Flying Tigers in China in WW II.  The Flying Tigers flew planes authorized by the U. S. through the Lend Lease program, and the ground staff and pilots were a combination of volunteers and mercenaries.  After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Cheannault's Flying Tigers were the first American forces to have success against the Japanese military.
1901   Anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds US President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
1909 American explorer Robert Peary sent word that he had reached the North Pole five months earlier.

1916 The first self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, was opened in Memphis, Tenn., by Clarence Saunders.

Rackham illustration
"Sigfried Awakens
Brunnhilde", Richard
Wagner's "The Ring"1917    Birth of Philipp von Boeselager, German Wehrmacht officer, failed assassin of Adolf Hitler (d. 2008)
1930  Democratically elected Argentine president Hipólito Yrigoyen is deposed in a military coup.
1939   Death of Arthur Rackman, English book illustrator (b. 1867)

1940   King Carol II of Romania abdicates and is succeeded by his son Michael.

1941 Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas were ordered to wear yellow Stars of David.

1943   The Monterrey Institute of Technology, one of the largest and most influential private universities in Latin America, is founded in Monterrey, Mexico.

1949   Allied military authorities relinquish control of former Nazi Germany assets back to German control.
           A former sharpshooter in World War II, Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, with a souvenir Luger to become the first U.S. single-episode mass murderer.

1952   Canada's first television station, CBFT-TV, opens in Montreal.

1955   Istanbul Pogrom: Istanbul's Greek and Armenian minority are the target of a government-sponsored pogrom.

1963   The Centre for International Industrial Property Studies (CEIPI) is founded.

1965   War of 1965: India retaliates following Pakistan's failed Operation Grand Slam which resulted in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that is ended following the signing of the Tashkent Declaration.

1966   In Cape Town, South Africa, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, is stabbed to death during a parliamentary meeting.
          Death of Margaret Sanger, American birth control activist (b. 1879)

1970   Two passenger jets bound from Europe to New York are simultaneously hijacked by Palestinian terrorist members of PFLP and taken to Dawson's Field in Jordan.

1972   Munich Massacre: 9 Israel athletes taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games by the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group died (as did a German policeman) at the hands of the kidnappers during a failed rescue attempt. 2 other Israeli athletes are slain in the initial attack the previous day.

1976   Cold War: Soviet air force pilot Lt. Viktor Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter at Hakodate on the island of Hokkaidō in Japan and requests political asylum in the United States.

1983   The Soviet Union admits to shooting down Korean Air Flight KAL-007, stating that the pilots did not know it was a civilian aircraft when it violated Soviet airspace.

1986   In Istanbul, two terrorists from Abu Nidal's organization kill 22 and wound six inside the Neve Shalom synagogue during Shabbat services.

1991   The Soviet Union recognizes the independence of the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
           The name Saint Petersburg is restored to Russia's second largest city, which had been renamed Leningrad in 1924.

1992   Hunters discover the emaciated body of Christopher Johnson McCandless at his camp 20 miles west of the town of Healy, Alaska.
 
1998   Death of Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director (b. 1910)
 
2002   Meeting outside Washington D.C., for only the second time since 1800, Congress convened in New York to pay homage to the victims and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001.
 
2005   The California Legislature became the first legislative body in the nation to approve same-sex marriages. (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger later vetoed the bill.)
 
2006    President George W. Bush acknowledged previously secret CIA prisons around the world and said 14 high-value terrorism suspects had been transferred from the system to Guantanamo Bay for trials.

2007   Deaths of Madeleine L'Engle, American author (b. 1918), Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor (b. 1935),
and Alex, African Grey parrot "student" of Dr. Irene Pepperberg (b. 1976)

MUMBAI, Sept 6 (Reuters) - The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) plans to buy a majority stake in investor services company Computer Age Management Services (CAMS) for 6.5 billion rupees ($140 million), the Economic Times reported on Monday.

Many played a role
San Bernardino Sun
George Soros emigrated to the United States in 1956 and proceeded to become one of the richest men in the world - estimated at well over $7 billion. ...

Despite a multi-million dollar media blitz, Israelis are not buying the US-financed Geneva Initiative's attempt to convince us that we have a Palestinian partner. A week after the pro-Palestinian group launched its...

Last month we examined the political climate in Oregon noting that in 2010, the Beaver State is "not your traditional swing state." Head up I-5, and you'll notice striking similarities between the happenings in Oregon...

It's interesting why behavior that we readily recognize, on an individual level, as undesirable, we routinely promote and accept as government and social policy. What rational person would suggest that being detached...