BRUSHFIRES OF FREEDOM

NOTICE

Health issues continue to interfere with our activity and will do so for a while longer.  These blogs will remain active, but active-in-slow-motion, until we can get back in the saddle again.

We Don’t Want No Education

{My plan had been to present next what Dr. Theodore Dalrymple says about those who caused the disaster of the British underclass, which has spread ante-grade and retrograde into the middle and upper classes. However, British education just screams for presentation first. This includes the mind-sets of those who created British education.}

(See Lessons from Life at the Bottom and The British Underclass: The Effect and America Follows UK , our previous articles about Life at the Bottom, the brilliant book by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple.)

One of the most chilling chapters in Life at the Bottom is the chapter about secondary public education in England. Dr. Dalrymple introduces the topic this way:

Education has always been a minority interest in England…In the past…[the lack of interest]…was purely passive: the mere absence of knowledge. Of late, however, it has taken on a more positive and malign quality: a profound aversion to anything that smacks of intelligence, education, or culture. (P. 68)

He goes on to state that "…it is impossible to overstate the abysmal educational depths to which a large proportion of the English have now sunk, boding ill for the country's future in the global market."

For example, few of the 16 year olds whom he treated could read and write with any facility. Three syllables defeated almost all of them. Not a single youth he met could multiply nine by seven. He relates that one boy when asked to multiply three by seven said, "We didn't get that far." And, this lad meant by "that far" as after twelve years of compulsory education.

That their ignorance is profound hardly states the problem. They do not know writers, a single line of poetry, simple dates such as those for World War II. They know as little about Stalin as they do about Shakespeare. "To them, 1066 is more likely to mean a price than a date."

One of the first sequelae of such a malignant system is that "…the young [are] condemned to live in an eternal present, a present that merely exists, without connection to a past that might explain it or to a future that might develop from it." (P. 70) Their only standards for evaluation of anything come from advertisements and television.

Some of this is not the fault of the youth. The betrayal of England by its intellectuals has been profound, and is the same that our intellectuals are doing to our country. For example, failure is no longer permitted in the English educational system. Why? Failure might damage a youth's self-esteem. Everyone must get a graduate certificate. Attention to syntax and orthography are eschewed because they inhibit children's creativity and powers of self-expression. Knowing that they got something wrong induces a debilitating sense of inferiority from which they can never recover, so say those in charge of British compulsory education.

Dr. Dalrymple writes of meeting now and then teachers who try to teach properly, but they live in fear "…rather reminiscent of the atmosphere that surrounded those who secretly tried to propagate truth behind the late Iron Curtain." It is with good reason that these "renegade" teachers are afraid. Their jobs are under continuous scrutiny by administrators, who are part of the problem. For example, most schools will allow only five corrections per any piece of student work.

What is happening in the schools is an extension of progressive child-rearing: "laissez faire tempered with insensate rage." No child learns any form of discipline or any other meaning for consistency. He learns to react only to moods of parents and teachers, which are almost always inconsistent.

Beyond, however, "[t]he ground is laid for a bloody-minded intolerance of any authority whatever, even should that authority be based upon patently superior and benevolent knowledge and wisdom." Authority has gone from being suspect to being totally disrespected. These children learn to exist totally on impulse gratification, including doing only what they feel like doing, not doing anything anyone in authority presents.

Progressivism has contaminated British schools as much or more than in America. Children are groupies. They are taught in groups, and they are expected to learn cognitive materials and their use through accidental discovery and play. The group is all; the individual has been totally devalued.

Later in their lives, when Dr. Dalrymple sees them in his capacity as psychiatrist, he finds the best of them asking how they can get interested in something, anything. They have no interests, and no clues about how to acquire any. This means, simply but tragically, that nothing has any importance, i.e., any value, to them. This illustrates the destructiveness of modern nihilism. They have learned nothing, including how to learn. They are totally deficient in materials of mental life and in the methods of using these materials. They have no autonomy or self-direction to their minds. Add to that their complete indoctrination against effort and a complete dedication to immediate gratification of basal impulses. They would have to improve substantially just to be called "shallow."

The biggest obstacle to improvement in English primary and secondary compulsory education comes from within the education establishment itself. This is exactly the situation in America, where the same suffocation is also imposed by the teacher unions. The government and unions fusion is an abominable monster destroying the minds of English children; add to that the abysmal inferiority of their teacher colleges, which seem to be as bad as ours.

The intellectuals who produced the travesty of British education are part and parcel of the intellectuals who bear sole responsibility for the freakish contemporary British underclass and for the near intellectual disintegration of the U.K.

It does not help that the English people in general have blatantly disvalued education for decades. Not everyone does, of course, but so many are simply unaware of the need for education, as odd as that might seem. Their progeny see nothing of value to be obtained from education, not even for getting jobs.

There is a hidden "benefit," however:

"There is one great psychological advantage to the white underclass in their disdain for education: it enables them to maintain the fiction that the society around them is grossly, even grotesquely, unjust, and that they themselves are the victims of this injustice. (P. 76)

The other side of that double-edged sword is equally destructive to the underclass. They routinely have a profound resentment of achievement, and doing well in school is one of their greatest resentments. Being smart and learned threatens their entire Weltanschauung. "The success of one is a reproach to all." One who improves himself threatens all and threatens the comfort zone of a truly dissipated life style.

Where these of the underclass got such notions in the first place and why these notions have become a complete Weltanschauung are not to be found among the underclass. They come from British intellectuals who are as refractory to examining their ideas critically as are American intellectuals; all are of the left. These intellectuals and their ideas we take up next.

The British Underclass: The Effect and America Follows UK

We recently published an article, Lessons from Life at the Bottom, providing an overview of one of the best books we have read this year. It is Dr. Theodore Dalrymple's Life at the Bottom. This article expands the discussion by profiling the British underclass, which serves as a canary in the mine for America. We are following Britain's path exactly, and their underclass provides profound insight into what is happening here, what has been causing it, and where we are along the continuum of degradation.

British psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple devoted 14 years of his professional life to the diagnosis and treatment of members of the British underclass, whom he encountered in hospitals and prisons of urban England. Almost a lone voice, he is trying to tell us that the underclass of England today is unlike the underclass of any previous period in English history. Today's underclass is the offspring and the responsibility of dominant leftist British intellectuals. England has undergone a complete inversion of the nature of its lowest socioeconomic inhabitants; the middle and upper classes of England are now adopting the values and behaviors of their lessers as England enters into what may be its final stages of cultural degradation.

~~~~~

LESSONS FROM LIFE AT THE BOTTOM

"In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years. It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power. (Page 5)

[…]

"It is a curious characteristic of our age that cultural influences now seem to flow from the lower social classes upward, rather than from the upper classes downward…And just as Britain in the most culturally degraded country in Europe, so does its cultural influence grow." (Page 55)

These are tough statements coming from a Brit of extraordinary talent, and he backs them up. This extraordinary thinker and writer is a British psychiatrist, now working for the Manhattan Institute. He is Theodore Dalrymple.

Dr. Dalrymple worked for many years as a psychiatrist among the English underclass in prison hospitals, as well as in and prison psychiatric facilities in urban England. In addition, he has worked internationally among third world populations on several continents, giving him unique comparatives. During his years of work among the third world peoples and among the British underclass, he observed, conceptualized, and wrote about them.

The Christian Right's Suicide Mission

The antidote to Islam and to the cultural disintegration spawned by the ideas of modern liberalism is NOT Christianity. If the Republicans and those who make up the dogmatic section of the Right want political power again, they had better get the message.

Right wing radio talk hosts as well as presidential candidates and scads of those on the right in Congress and their influencers push untruths in the guise of truths. Foremost is the notion that America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that this is a Christian nation. Even a new book by a famous author on the right over endows Christianity with founding reason, science, and all that is good in the West. Were their da'wa correct, they would have no need to push so hard.

[Continued on The New Enlightenment]

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP

I am not a member of or supporter of the food police. If people want to smoke, imbibe in alcohol, smoke dope, eat fast foods, etc., well, that is their concern, as long as it does not spill over adversely to me. I am more concerned right now about the unofficial agents of the nanny state trying to control what we consume than any harmfulness in the products, many of which are just alleged. There is one thing, however, I have come to despise.

That something is called "high fructose corn syrup."

[Continued on Nous American]

NEW EDITION OF 6TH COLUMN AGAINST JIHAD PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 2007

We are particularly pleased with this issue of 6^th Column Against Jihad, our website.

First, it is good to be able to get back to selecting, writing, and publishing after an unexpectedly disruptive summer. Second, the contributions to this issue are good reading.

We bid farewell to the novel Hatred of the Angels from our website because it has been published in book form. The link is on the Hatred of the Angels page, as well as selected chapter synopses provided by the author and her biographical sketch. Although it might seem to be off topic or off theme, we have included Theodore Dalrymple's article, Delusions of Honesty, because Dr. Dalrymple is such a magnificent thinker and writer of beautiful prose; he takes Tony Blair properly to the woodshed in this article. No Sharia completes his series on the Islamization of Europe and what to do about it, Islamization of European Union and Policies to Prevent It, Part 9: Policy Area 12: Security Policy, Part C.

If you ever see something written by Laurent Murawiec or about him, read it. The interview from Front Page Magazine, Pandora's Boxes, takes your mind deep into Islam understanding, different from most approaches. We included Dr. Hanson's Why Study War? because almost everything Dr. Hanson is so relevant. We reprinted Soeren Kern's thoughtful article, Who Is Allah?, to revisit the well-known and to discover nuances seldom known. A perennial favorite of ours is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which is why we keeping our review of her outstanding autobiography currently available; The Role of Journalism Today tells the mainstream media what they ought to be doing rationally.

Our dear friend, Jacob Thomas, has absolutely outdone himself this time with three brilliant articles. Two concern Christianity and Islam (A New Minority in North Africa--The Maghrebi Christians under the Rule of Islamists; "Why Do the Copts of Egypt Fear Fridays?"), in ways you will find novel. The third, "The Myth of Islamophobia" , takes his translation from an Arabic language article and giving it rigorous analysis unique to him. You may be quite surprised by what he found in his Arabic source. Once again, we are honored to have another excellent analysis of Islam from Dr. Babu Suseelan, The Anatomy of Islamic Espionage and Sabotage.

Lastly, I am offering Ethical Motivation and Jihadis; Viet-Raq; "We refuse to 'get it,' and you can't make us!"; and "What Can I Do?" My editorial reflects on how big unexpected events change how one views old problems, i.e., Islam.

11 September + Six Years

The anniversary of the events of that terrible Tuesday morning is about to come and go. What to say about it, I ask myself? I answer that there is little if anything I can say or write now that in any way presents anything new. My quiver of new missives about 9-11 has been spent. HOWEVER, I have not joined the alleged legions of Americans who have forgotten about the events or who just no longer care.

No, indeed, I have not forgotten. I have not ceased caring. Nor have I forgiven.

I have, however, expanded my concerns to include many more than the original perpetrators. The maelstrom of strong and varied emotions of the time, so acutely felt for so long, have done what acute emotions always do. The initial pain has receded. That is not exactly correct. While the pain has receded, the emotions have been transformed into chronic rage.

Yes, I do mean "rage." My rational side wants punishment of the guilty, as does my emotional side. They are congruent and are not the mask of Janus. Both come from JUSTICE UNDONE.

"Justice" does not mean that I want the perpetrators brought to American courts and jailed in American prisons. I want them DEAD, and I want their property and all that is theirs wiped from the earth. I want those who sponsored them, i.e., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and the rest of the sand ferrets of Islamia, to pay the price for their actions. I do not want their rehabilitation. I want their destruction, and I want those left behind never to forget the consequences of actions and their support for those actions. I want them to know down deep and permanently that their creed is evil, and they must keep it to themselves. Oh, yes, all that stuff about how they welcome death is just so much persiflage. Only the youthful fanatical assassins believe that, and act on it; so, therein is an opportunity for them to rid their numbers of their vermin.  Most want to stay alive, and we can play that card.

Even though not one goddammed thing has been done on our behalf in six years, it is never too late. Now that we know them so much better, and the hot blood has become ice cold, we can punish much more effectively.

Many of those who advocate Islam did not participate directly in the events of 9-11, even though some did. I have been told repeatedly, that many have abhorred the actions of the 19 perpetrators. Six years later, I cannot name a single one of those who abhorred, nor a single group, nor a single Islamic country that sincerely abhorred the events of 9-11. However, I am always being reassured that they are out there. "They" are like the snipes of "snipe hunting."

Their silence is assent. They are the vast support system of the umma, providing money, materiel, and emotional support while trying to seem not to be doing any of it.

Muslims advocate in Islam a philosophy as deadly as Nazism and communism, and it is a living death, mostly to Muslims who become blighted humans. Even if they are not killing, many support in spirit those who do, something akin to "species solidarity." Those who cry crocodile tears and pretend support for America are like CAIR. One has to have learned how they use language to lie and deceive. For example, abhorring the death of "innocents" turns out to mean that the only "innocents" are Muslims. Non-Muslims are never innocent. The same people note that civilians must never be killed or hurt, but then they conceal that no non-Muslims can be considered to be "civilians." And so it goes, one lie cascading over the over, just as it has always been with Islam.

Being a "moderate" and Muslim is like being "a little bit pregnant," or being a "moderate Nazi." There are none—it is just propaganda for the gullibly ignorant who will not bother to read any facts about Islam.

My scope seeking justice has expanded to our home front. Six years have gone by, and not a single thing has been done to strike back. Our president is as bad as any Democrat or any leftie of any other name. He grovels before Islamists at home and abroad. He let them off the hook immediately in 2001, and turned on his spin machine. He spun a web of deceit which he cast over Americans to make them think he was acting with just deliberation and fortitude. The "justice" he spoke of was the Augustinian ideal, meaning "sacrificial service to others," which includes turning the other cheek. Guess who were really "sacrificed"? Look in the mirror.  We got the double whammy follow-on to 9-11. The president surrounded himself with a vast army of his own of Yes "persons," made of similar fiber. He had formal military leaders cut from the same bolt of cloth.

Smelling weakness, America's intelligentsia formed a shark pack, from which the president has been running to this day. Journalists, academics, policy wonks, talking heads have treed this man and his administration as effectively as hounds tree a 'coon.

No one anywhere at any time respects weakness. Weakness comes not from lack of physical strength, but from lack of moral strength. Tiny David took out humungous Goliath. David had moral certainty and a strong sense of justice.

11 September 2001 will always remain another "Day of Infamy," just as the day of the events in December of 1941 will remain so. The big difference is that we sought out the perpetrators and punished them justly (in the real meaning), including dropping two nuclear bombs on them before they could complete their own nukes in northern Korea to use on us. We made the supporting populace feel on their skin the price of supporting their perpetrators. We cowed their Emperor, who asserted his "godhood" to force his military fanatics to end the madness. Now, although the attack on Pearl Harbor remains a solemn and sobering memory, it is not a sore unhealed.

11 September 2001 cannot and will not heal until justice has been fully served. Fully served.

A Small Misunderstanding

Cubed here. The summer has not gone as planned for me because of some health problems, but now that I'm not as sloshed with pain medication as I have been for the last several weeks, I am able to begin blogging again, at least as a low level.

This is about an almost "Who cares?" issue, and it's really off the usual topics, but the fact that the idea is so widespread, and that Easter is only a few months off, irks me enough to write about it.

It's the matter of the ceremonial/ritual practice of "Washing the Feet" (usually of the Pope) during the Easter season; most observants interpret this act as a symbolic recreation of humble behavior at the Last Supper, where Jesus' feet were washed by his followers.

The "washing of feet" prior to dining was truly a widespread practice among the upper classes of Rome and the "Romanized" peoples of the Empire, and according to some, Jesus and his family fell into that category. They maintain that although not a family of great wealth, Jesus was not as impoverished as generally portrayed, but actually fairly comfortably off. In fact, the very washing of his feet prior to the last (and quite possibly other) formal dining experience of his life has been offered as one piece of evidence supporting this view. Formal dining was not engaged in by the poor.

So, if not a show of humbleness, what WAS the practice of foot washing all about?

Most people know that among wealthy Romans, the diners lay on couches around the table. During dinner, the diners' shoes were removed so as not to dirty the couches. Since the shoes were made of leather, and (with few exceptions by soldiers, especially in northern provinces) socks were not worn, the odor from sweaty feet was both copious and permanent, and as we all know, it could be pretty ferocious. Since, in addition, the diners reclined at a slant on their left elbows while eating with their right hands, their feet were pretty close to the faces of the person next to their left. So - well, you know how unpleasant that could make eating if some odor control precaution weren't taken.

The precaution taken was foot washing. Servants circulated around the diners after they had removed their shoes, and washed their feet so that that they could eat without becoming nauseated by the odor of the feet of the person next to them.

The Romans were significantly misunderestimated re: their ability to think at any but a somewhat brutish "practical" level (as contrasted with higher level conceptual levels). However, I must admit, the practice of foot-washing represented a very practical solution to a real problem of daily life. Not a major achievement, perhaps, but it solved a serious etiquette problem.

Given the formality and gravity of the Last Supper, the fact that Jesus was quite possibly of a somewhat better off socioeconomic level than generally thought, that adult males at these kinds of occasions did not sit in chairs at the table (as pictured in Leonardo's famous painting), and that sitting in chairs around a table near the men's couches was a practice limited largely to women and children (empresses and such not included), this could offer an explanation for the "Washing of the Feet" ceremony of the Pope at Easter.

Whether this might offer some clues about the identity of the feminine-looking figure to Jesus' right in Leonardo's fresco I don't know (would a woman eat with the men on such an occasion?), but it might shed some light on the Muslims' foot-washing practice at prayer; after all, they have formed rows during prayer, with the heads of one row very near the feet of the bare feet of the next row, from an era where socks weren't commonly worn.

Whew! Yuk!

Viet-Raq

A new "flap du jour" pits Democrats in Congress against President Bush because Bush has been comparing Vietnam to Iraq. Bush has been partially correct, while Congress has been fully incorrect. For example, Senate Buffoon Kerry denied any bloodshed after we pulled out of Iraq, and he thought the "re-education camps" were examples of sound pedagogy. Comparing Iraq to Vietnam, at least in part, is indeed valid, but for reasons not usually stated.

Not "Saving Grace"

This summer, the crime drama Saving Grace has been hyped ceaselessly. The ads suggest that this new program is greater than superb, is beyond excellence, and just might displace all previous great film and television dramas. Part of the hype advertises its star, the Academy Award winning Holly Hunter.

[Continued on Nous American.]

Michael Vick and Abu Ghraib

Michael Vick, big time quarterback in the National Football League, has plea-bargained himself into minor punishment by confessing to interstate trafficking in dog fighting. The evidence suggests much, much more that Vick did, but the prosecutors settled for this plea.

[Continued on The New Enlightenment.]

Thank You

Thank you to those who have called, written, and commented while we have been "off line" tending to illnesses.  Every comment will be responded to soon as will every email.  We have thrown the switch to start the generators, but they will take time to get back up to full speed.  We will get there, however.

We Just Might Be on the Way Back

Cubed and I have not been blogging or updating the website since early in July 2007, except to provide terse health status reports. During all of this time, we have been tangling with the Great Unforeseen, a seldom talked about force in the universe. Cubed has been ill with one surgical and two medical maladies, meriting two hospitalizations. The Great Unforseen took her summer, and--in concert--mine, on quite a ride, quite far away from what we planned and expected. Bobbie Burns nailed it: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley."

Cubed is convalescing at last without further setbacks, but she wears out easily and may not get back to writing until more strength and stamina return. She will be getting to the jillions of emails sooner.

We observed a few things over the past few weeks. In one of the follow-up clinic visits, a very ancient lady taking herself by walker to her appointment told Cubed, "I don't mind getting old. I just hate all the things you lose along the way." Amen, brother. The lady turned to a young male, replete with body piercings and the grunge look and told him, "You have no idea what we are talking about. But, you will." The young male looked very taken aback. It is really agonizing to recall just how intolerant we could be when we were so young, so vigorous, and so healthful—and so naïve and ignorant.

A friend of mine had a prostate biopsy session with his urologist. If you are old enough to know how this is done, you will appreciate my friend's remarks: "Not a kiss. Not even a bottle of wine. He didn't even lower the lights." After a similar event this summer, another "Amen, brother."

Anyway, we will be getting back to work, little by little. The aggravations of life have not diminished over the summer. The Great Unforeseen did nothing about them. For example, we asked a health horn tooting, vegetarian mayonnaise food product manufacturer about the Vitamin K content of his grape seed oil based mayo, and his minion responded with the attitude of the Post Office + Motor Vehicles Department, along the line of "look it up for yourself." I sensed real "liability fright" in the non-answer. I did look it up. It took hours and extrapolating, but it makes a difference for someone now living on anticoagulants, along with millions of others. I am contemplating my telling the company my findings, editorialized, of course.

I pulled out an old revolver I inherited from my father, made by Colt. I began looking for ammunition since it is not on the current hit parade of common pistols. I asked several big companies, and all responded with "liability frights." They fearfully declined to answer. Now I have to drive up I-5 for a good piece to a gunsmith and buy his answer after he calibrates. The funny thing is, I think I know the answer, and I think the proper ammunition is easily available, if not commonly carried. What a bother to go through because so many have litigation fears.

We have allowed ourselves to become the Culture of the Intimidated. The god-dammed Muslims intimidate us. The lawyers intimidate us. And the nihilists running around destroying anything good in our culture are intimidating us. We are living defensively instead of living as Americans.

Damn!

Back to the wars!

Still on Stand-By

Family illness continues to occupy our full concerns.  We have thought a lot of articles, but, alas, not a single thought has gotten itself published by itself.  Hopefully, normal convalescence will resume for our loved one shortly.  Until then, she gets all of our attention.

ETHICAL MOTIVATION AND JIHADIS

Too often we fail to keep in the forefront of our minds just why jihadis do what they do. We declare their behavior as "evil," and often let it go, without further thought. We run the risk of failing to realize the role of morality in their actions, which leads too often to statements of amazement along the line of "They actually believe in what they do!"

Of course they believe in what they do, and this is why they are such an aggravation to deal with. We need to keep their "why" in as prominent place in our thinking as their "how." This is a good time to reexamine some characteristics of ethics, ones that apply to us all, and ones that apply to jihadis in particular.

WHERE HAVE THEY GONE?

One of my great pleasures in life has been enjoying the sight of attractive women.  It never mattered what were their ages, their

[Continued on Nous American]

One of my great pleasures in life has been enjoying the sight of attractive women.  It never mattered what were their ages, their ethnicities, their nationalities, and the like, as long as they were grown.  I  enjoy the pleasing picture of older women who always project qualities their younger counterparts have yet to experience.  Of course, I have always have maintained decorum (never a “dirty old man”), but I have “lusted with my eyes.”  This summer, I find myself unable to enjoy a very human, male pastime.  I am deprived, and I am asking why.

Summer Irregularity

We did not intend to be slow and irregular in writing and publishing this summer, but the Unexpected has been popping up, including some health matters.  We will remain sporadic most likely across the summer.

MICHAEL MEDVED DECLARES WAR ON--CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

It seems like a likely date for the beginning of the war was the day that Christopher Hitchens’ book, god is not great:  How religion spoils everything (see our review) was published.  The actual battling began 11 July 2007, when Christopher Hitchens gave two hours of his time to Michael Medved on the latter’s radio talk show.  If there ever has been a war without end, this is it.

[Continued on The New Enlightenment]

4 JULY 2007

As we barrel down on 4 July, we need to give ourselves a reprieve from all the sordid news of the day, all the sordid newsmakers, and all the sordid news presenters. We need some good stuff, like the following.

[Continued on The New Enlightenment]

"We refuse to 'get it,' and you can't make us!"

Three events this last week of June of 2007 point out utter pitifulness in the UK and America.

First, in the UK, two London car bombs were detected and neutralized before people could be harmed on Friday, 29 June.  Second, the following day, two "Asian-appearing men" ran a burning suv into the front of the Glascow, Scotland airport.  Everything coming from England on the news has the talking heads speaking of persons from the "Indian subcontinent," perhaps, and "al Qaeda," perhaps.  No one is being caught dead naming the obvious.

A Sure-Fire Instant Get Rich Offer

Few things take the pleasure out of day quite like the daily news, national and international.  Much of the daily email falls into the same category.  However, I was honored to receive what surely is the greatest, get-rich-instantly plan on earth, and it came by email.  I won't spoil it by over-hyping it.  It speaks for itself.

It came from "Hassim Muhammad <[email protected]>" and had the subject line, "Fake Dollar Business ($)."

TOP SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL

Good day brother, how is business? Hope fine.

Thanks be to ALLAH almighty, this letter or business relationship proposal must come to you as a surprise. I am HASSIM MUHAMMAD, a well known Business Man in the World.

I am into Printing and Making World Currency, using the best quality paper money around Asia, Europe and Africa.

If you are interested to know how to print good quality US dollar, Euro, Pounds and most of International Currencies, contact us at:

[email protected]

[email protected]

Send an SMS to 0027-72-0138444 please no calls only sms.

NOTE THAT THIS IS VERY CONFIDENTIAL AND YOUR IDENTITY IS NEVER GOING TO BE GIVEN TO ANY ONE, BEFORE WE GIVE YOU MORE INFORMATIONS, WE WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE RELIABLE..

TO VIEW THE MONEY MAKING PROCEDURES

CLICK HERE

Don't forget, CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boy, Did These Chickens Come Home to Roost!

The op-ed page of the New York Times for Sunday, 17 June 2007, carried an article that was one of the best illustrations of the effects of philosophy that I have read in quite some time.  By "philosophical," I mean what Lord Bolingbroke meant when he wrote in 17th century England, "History is philosophy teaching by example."

The op-ed was entitled "Where the Arts Were Too Liberal" and was written by Michael Goldfarb, who has worked extensively with National Public Radio.  He writes from a decidedly modern liberal (Left) perspective but has retained more objectivity than most modern liberals.  What he writes should be an exceptionally useful teaching example in objective university philosophy courses (which eliminates most of them).  Most university philosophy departments are strongly akin to the philosophy that killed Antioch College, the subject of this op-ed.

REVIEW: god is not Great

[Hitchens, Christopher:  god is not Great, How religion poisons everything; Twelve, Hachete Book Group USA, NY; 2007; ISBN-13 = 978-0-446-57980 and ISBN-10 = 0-446-57980-7]

The publisher's summary states that this book is "A case against religion and a description of the ways religion is man-made."  Although accurate, this summary just does not tell you how much fun this book is to read.  I want to tell that, and more.

[Continued on The New Enlightenment]

THE KEYSTONE TO THE BUSH LEGACY: IRAN

The Executive Branch of the United States of America government has an unenviable track record regarding Iran.  It spans the administrations of Jimmy Carter and EVERY president through to George W. Bush.  It is "uneviable" because it is a moral travesty.  Every president from Carter on has acted with moral cowardice toward Iran, and that includes the mighty Ronald Reagan.  However, none has done worse than George W. Bush.

Why Are We Letting Islam Exist?

Yes, that title question is meant to be provocative.  Yes, there is doubtless no way that we can stop Islam from existing.  However, and yes, there are rational ways to isolate Islam, essentially neutralizing it, somewhat similar to the "wisdom" of the body in isolating foreign bodies.

Rational men and women should not be bothered with something as irrational as Islam.  They should sequester it and do whatever is needed to render it harmless to themselves and their values.  Then, they should inflict the worst possible punishment on Islam and all its adherents:  They should ignore Islam 100% and require Islamists have only themselves all the time.

Great Westerns for Television: Gunsmoke

My pace of life picked up very significantly about the time the B western movies died away in the mid-1950s. What I had time left for were radio dramas, which still existed and were very entertaining in the mid-1950s. My favorite then and now remains the original radio series Gunsmoke.

Radio Gunsmoke started in 1952 and ended in 1961. I feel damned lucky to have caught so many of the broadcasts at the time. Even now, I still love listening to their reruns whenever I am lucky enough to find an "old time radio" series being rebroadcast on radio these days. William Conrad was Matt Dillon, and he was terrific. What a voice and dramatization of the spoken language he commanded. He would have been a magnificent Matt Dillon on television except for one thing--he had a major body weight problem, which James Arness, the one and only television Matt Dillon, never had.

Still, if you are too young to have enjoyed radio dramas, you missed the exhilarating exercise of your imagination. If you are a child of television, you have no idea what you missed, and you probably never will know the thrills that those with radio only knew through art via the radio.

As those magnificent B western movies went into history, the new medium of television treated them as though they were manna from heaven. The new medium of television really started out trying to figure out just what it was. Everything was a novelty to television. We have all seen myriad kinescope recordings of the early live variety shows and the earlier recorded live dramas. Television enjoyed no sophistication in its infancy, so it turned to movies to fill in for all the lacking original programming.

[Continued on Nous American.]

Some Thoughts About the Immigration Problem

From: The Neglected Truths of the Immigration Debate:

1. Any plan that can't be enforced is no improvement.

2. Poor and unskilled immigrants are expensive for the rest of society.

3. A large supply of unskilled immigrant labor benefits some groups and hurts others.

4. The is nothing wrong in insisting that immigrants serve American interests, not vice versa.

5. Citizenship is precious, and carries with it serious obligations.

6. Border security is well within our grasp, and is a precondition for the success of other immigration changes.

7. Successful reform will come on step at a time, not all at once in a comprenesive package.

There are other solutions besides mass deportation that seems to be "troubling to so many" who wish to force a transformation of the United States:

1. Attrition through enforcement;

2. Strict enforcement of immigration laws;

3. Cracking down on fraudulent social security numbers and other false identification;

4. Reducing benefits for illegals;

5. Being vigilant about visa overstays;

Possibilities:

1. Taxing remittances;

2. Reforming the anchor baby provision of the Fourteenth Amendment;

3. Reversing Plyer vs. Doe, the Supreme Court decision forcing public schools to educate alien children

It would take a lot of guts to apply any one of these measures. It not likely that our pandering, gutless politicians will follow through.

Being Uplifted

The centennary of John Wayne came so close in time with the anniversary of D Day that they seem spiritually connected as one flowed into the other.

Turner Classic Movies, American Movie Classics, and Encore Westerns reran a number of John Wayne movies.  Some get little showing these days, but he did a number of patriotic themed movies during World War II, and, of course, for the rest of his career.  A few of those WWII movies were new, but they had stellar casts, good scripts, and heart-felt acting.

In addition, History Channel, the Military Channel, and other history related "cable channels" ran a number of programs related to World War II.

There Is No Birthright To Citizenship For Children Born to Illegal Aliens In The U.S.

Whew! It appears that our national sovereignty has received a slight respite!

While we are catching our breath, crossing our fingers, and trying to drum some sense into our legislators (Bush is hopeless), let's consider what the Fourteenth Amendment REALLY means.

I have blogged on this subject before, and in 2002, Robert Locke published an enlightening article in Frontpage Magazine. Now, June 8 2007, in The Patriot Post, there is another very fine discussion of the meaning of this Amendment.

In short, both articles document the fact that the children born to people who are illegally in the United States, the "anchor babies," are not American citizens.

The whole issue revolves about the phrase in the Amendment which reads "...subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

This phrase was inserted precisely to avoid the problem of "anchor babies" that we are experiencing today. Please read both articles - today's from The Patriot Post, printed below, and the one from Frontpage.mag.

A Heartfelt Thanks to All Jihadis

They've gone and done it again!  This time they went for JFK International Airport in New York City.  And this incident broke news right behind that hippie-cum-Muslim Perlman--no, that's not right, it's Gidahn, or something like that.  Wait.  He morphed again, into Aziza or something close to that.  Well, no matter.  We came not get a bunch of names just right but to extend a really warm "thanks" to all the jihadis of the world.

Jihadis, you have stepped in since GW Bush stepped away from your Islamic jihad campaigns, all the mini-9-11s about the globe, and all your good works in your enlightened lands.  You have felt the need to get the attention of America since the 1970s, and goodness knows, you have tried very hard, with not much success.  You have finally done it and without awakening a single U. S. president, the State Department, or DoD.  That is skill on your part.