THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

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.

Enviro-Nitwit Day Coming

Humans succumbing to emotional contagions are not a pretty sight, nor an admirable one.  The spectacle resembles the sight of sheep being herded by a wolf-in-drag, i.e., a dog, or a school of fish darting here and there just to keep up with the crowd.  Entities that a capable of conceptual thinking should never engage in such brain stem follies.  However, a lot of otherwise intelligent and educated human beings are succumbing to the new Mesmerism of "global warming."

Their brains, they have turned off, so that they can be directed solely by their limbic brains and amygdalae to act as a truly thoughtless, emotionally dominated herd.

Here is one of the latest public spectacles forthcoming this weekend:

The Stock Market is Falling!

As the news of the China stock market drop of some 10% went out to the world from the BBC night before last, by the time of the USA morning news, the NYSE, et al, had tumbled.  Great consternation descended into all the news organizations.  Since they stopped--all together too briefly--talking about Anna Nicole Smith, their new pitbullism came as a relief.  All day and all night, the talking heads talked--and talked--and talked.

Only this morning, some 36 hours or so later, did the critical news slip out about the Chinese stock market.

That news is that the Chinese stock market is 100% government controlled.  The Red Chinese government runs the thing.  In fact, the sum total that all foreigners can invest is $10 million. 

So, when the Red Chinese government hinted that it was about to establish capital gains taxes and to replace some high up functionary, the highly speculative Chinese stock market flatulated and eructated, at the same time.  Knees jerked all over the globe.

"Government" and "free market" do not belong in the same sentence, except as mutual negations, as oxymorons.  If there is a market, it is not free, not when rumors that the controlling brute is going to flex its muscles can blow down this house of cards.

"Government" through the Federal Reserve System got into the USA economy big time in the 1920s and caused severe overheating, without directly controlling the NYSE.  The Great Depression resulted. 

Now, what might happen to the Chinese stock market and economy if some commie thug high in the Red Chinese government decides to manipulate the world?

Enviro-communists Heat Up "Global Warming"

Is there really "global warming"?  Well, here are the relevant answers:  "Yes," "No," and "Who cares?"  Having given the answers, let's get down to the relevant questions.

Williams and Sowell for '08

It has become totally impossible to find a single thing good to say about the Democrat Party and the Republican Party, or any of their real and fantasy candidates for the 2008 presidential election.  As we have said before, we need a new party, and, given the philosophical overlap of Democrats and Republicans, it would be a new SECOND political party.

Getting into the details of such a party, even into its name, is not really what this article concerns today.  The real concern comes from being thunderstruck last Friday, 29 December 2006.

Dr. Walter E. Williams of George Mason University, Department of Economics, was the substitute host for Rush Limbaugh.  So much horse sense, common sense, and downright logical rationality poured from this man that it hit us.  This man should be the candidate of the new party.  In fact, he should be President of the United States of America.  He has matters foreign and domestic down pat, and down pat IN PRINCIPLES.  He would preserve and protect the Constitution and the Rights of Man of Americans.

He would need a running mate.  There is a brilliant and seasoned man who would bring great honor and prestige to the office of Vice President of the United States of America.  He is Dr. Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute at Stanford.  Hew is wise, seasoned, and operates among the best of principles, all of which would serve our country well.

Williams and Sowell for '08!

Before You Vote ...

This article is directed mostly to those who have yet to vote for the mid-term election, scheduled 7 November 2006.  In a wider sense, it is directed also to those who should vote in 2008.

Over today and Monday, read the article "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism" by C. Bradley Thompson in The Objective Standard journal.  The article is freely available to all.

The journal's synoptic description reads: 

"Examines today’s putatively splintered conservative movement, zeros in on the essence of its two dominant factions, and shows the movement to be only superficially split while fundamentally unified—and stultified—by the conservatives’ universal acceptance of a morality that is antithetical to liberty."

This article we recommend to you particularly if you regard yourself as any of the following:

• Republican
• conservative
• On the Right or favoring the Right
• Constitutionalist
• Pro-freedom
• Right winger
• any similar term

The article is long, but is smooth reading and electrifying in what it will teach you.  No one can afford to be without this intellectual ammunition--our future depends on it.

The Cynthia McKinneys

This morning, the news featured Cynthia McKinney bellyaching about her primary loss in Georgia yesterday.  To hear her, it was the fault of the press, the fault of the voting machines, etc.  Then it hit me.

There are a lot of Cynthia McKinney types in Congress:  Maxine Waters, Sheilla Jackson Lee, Stephanie Tubbs, Corrine Brown, and many more.  Yes, they are all blacks and all women.  Throw in John Conyers and all of the Congressional Black Caucus, along with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan, and you can get rid of the gender distinction.  That leaves them having the common denominator physically of being Negro, but being Negro is not important to this discussion.  It has an importance, but it is much more along the line of how hard these loudmouth, hostile blacks make it for all the really good blacks, which is most of them.

No, the point here is that this set of hostile blacks act and sound just like Muslims, yet are not, with the possible exception of Calypso Louie.

Now that the Muslims are doing such a splendid job in teaching Americans to see them for what they are and act accordingly, perhaps the Cynthia McKinneys will soon wear out their welcomes.

What Is Restraint for Israel Now?

Apparently, Doufous George (W. Bush) has called on Israel to "show restraint."  We know what Righteous George wants:  both sides of the same issue. He is as rational as Israel's foes, so we can dismiss him as irrelevant.  Still that leaves the question.

What should Israel use as a criterion or criteria of restraint?

What if?

The latest kerfuffle involving North Korea makes me wonder something.  What if we ceased any governmental discussion of anything to do with North Korea?

Alter Egos

All day, talking heads all over the news have been wringing their hands about North Korea and its recent demonstration of rocketry.  In no time, each head morphs into hand-wringing about Iran.  Opinions about causal explanations vary as widely as do opinions about what to do about any of this.

About the only choices we have come down to deciding whether we want our war(s) now or later with these regimes.

What is driving all of this?  On stage are alternating puppet shows:  The Kim Jong Il Show followed by the Mullah Ahmadinejad Show.  Why are these regimes acting so high, mighty, and haughty?

What lets these minor entities think they are King Kongs?

North Korea is the alter ego for China, and Iran is the alter ego for Russia.  By the way, where did all that Communism go, other than to our universities, press, and Democrats?  North Korea is the way that the Red Chinese can act out what is really on their mind, with absolutely no danger of losing face.  The same can be said of Iran and Neo-Communist Russia.

China and Russia can batter us one way, then another, via their proxies while sitting around the fabulously effective U.N. Security Council table and dispassionately pulling their beards and proferring the wisdom of talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk... Their pip squeaks can give us wedgies (Europe may not notice its wedgies), and even risk warring with us.  China and Russia would stay out of the warring--at least directly, of course--but not support us, while we expend blood and treasure--and they accrue wealth and status.

What North Korea and what Iran might do creates far fewer worries than whether we have any backbone left.  We sure as hell have no proper leadership judging from Afghanistan and Iraq.

The inevitability of war may well hang on that infamous Law of Unintended Consequences.  If China and Russia unleash their pit bulls, thing may get really desperate.  Then, desperation may visit China and Russia.  There is no way to know right now.