Kathy Schmurtz's Blog

Liberty Film Festival

2004-09-23T03:54:49+02:00

Nouvelle page 1

hollywood's first
conservative
Film festival

right before
the election

right in the
heart of hollywood

& there's nothing
michael moore
can do
about it.

& there's nothingmichael moorecan do about it.

Il était une fois l'Iran

2004-09-06T06:57:14+02:00

Nouvelle page 1

Une autre conception de la prostitution:

Iran hardliners demand clampdown on women's dress

TEHRAN (Reuters) - About 500 hardline vigilantes have taken to the streets of Tehran, demanding authorities crack down on women who
wear colourful headscarves and figure-hugging coats which they denounce as "prostitution".

Tehran's hardline authorities have announced a clampdown on women who do not dress suitably modestly but the crowd, mainly composed
of long-shirted black-bearded men, called on the police and new conservative parliamentarians to do more.

"The promotion of bad dress codes is the desire of arrogant powers, shame on the government," chanted the crowd on Friday, punching the
air with their fists.

"Arrogant powers" is hardline rhetoric usually referring to the United States, Britain and Israel.

"We object to street prostitution and vice," read one placard brandished by protesters.

Dress codes eased a little after the election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami in 1997 but hardliners are trying to claw back these
concessions since their conservative allies retook parliament in May.

Many Tehran girls wear heavy make-up, tight jackets, glitzy jewellery and bright headscarves that allow their hair to spill out.

The placards were signed by the conservative Ansar-e Hizbollah group which last year manned checkpoints around parts of Tehran where
student demonstrations turned violent.

Witnesses said they saw the group's vigilantes thrashing people with sticks during the student protests.

"A proper dress code is defined by our religion and allows women to expose only their faces and hands," said a middle-aged female
protester, one of more than 100 dressed in the all-enveloping black chador.

"We hate these girls who go around all dolled up in the streets."

One member of the Ansar-e Hizbollah, who declined to be named, said this was the first stage of the group's campaign but he did not reveal
what the next would be.

Ansar-e Hizbollah members declined to comment on France's ban on Muslim headscarves in state schools.

Marché libre = possibilités infinies

2004-09-06T06:21:19+02:00

Nouvelle page 1

Le simple fait de briser le monopole des voyages
dans l'espace permet enfin d'infinies possibilités
que dans le passé, seuls les auteurs de science
fiction pouvaient imaginer.

Un exemple de plus de l'apport négatif de
l'interventionnisme étatique.

Holidays in space are on the horizon

19:00 01 September 04

Technology Trends report from New Scientist Print Edition.
Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

When SpaceShipOne blazed a contrail into the
clear blue sky above the Mojave desert on 21 June 2004,
it became the first privately built crewed craft
to reach space.

With that one flight, Burt Rutan's budget
rocket plane broke the government monopoly
on spaceflight – leaving pundits excitedly predicting
an era of private sub-orbital space travel,
with orbital travel and space hotels beckoning.
But is there enough consumer demand to
support commercial space flight?

Maybe, according to a 2002 study by the management
consultancy Futron, of Bethesda, Maryland, which boldly
predicts that no less than 12,000 people a year will
be taking sub-orbital tourist flights by 2020.

Although SpaceShipOne's flight came well after the
study was completed, it does not change any of its basic
assumptions, Futron analyst Janice Starzyk says.
"We made some pretty good assumptions, so we are
sticking to these numbers."

Wealthy and weightless

Futron polled only wealthy Americans who were
itching to experience weightlessness and see the
curvature of Earth from space. It assumed that competition
would drive down ticket prices from an initial $100,000
to $50,000 by 2021.

Already, scores of would-be space tourists have
put down substantial deposits on those first flights.
The money is going to companies like Rutan's Scaled Composites
that are competing for the $10 million Ansari X prize,
which will be awarded to the first viable, reusable
sub-orbital spacecraft.

One of those hoping for a ride on an early commercial
flight is the London-based Danish investment banker
Per Wimmer, to whom space is a logical extension
of his interest in adventure travel.

When one of his fellow adventurers told him he could
make a reservation for a sub-orbital flight, he jumped at
the chance, even though no commercial sub-orbital
craft then existed.

"It was really exciting to know this might be
possible," Wimmer says. And when he has made his sub-orbital
ride, he would like to take a holiday in orbit.

Some think he will not have to wait too long.
Jim Benson, head of SpaceDev, which built Rutan's
rocket engine, says far more powerful orbital spacecraft
will undoubtedly follow the sub-orbital vehicles,
and orbit could be reached by 2008.

Mach 25 capability

Challenges abound: SpaceShipOne got to sub-orbit at a
speed of Mach 3. Getting to orbit will require engines
capable of Mach 25. But Benson sees no show-stoppers.

Of course, tourists need accommodation, and Las Vegas
hotelier Robert Bigelow is aiming to supply it. Bigelow
made his fortune as the owner of the Budget Suites of
America hotel chain, and he is now launching a
$500 million effort to expand his business off-planet.

Adapted from TransHab, a never-used NASA design for an
inflatable space station, Bigelow's Nautilus space station
module will provide 330 cubic metres of living space for
space tourists or industrial researchers.

The inflatable multilayered polymer hull of the
"hab" will be around 30 centimetres thick and will contain
layers of Kevlar - as used in bullet-proof vests - to provide
some protection against micrometeorites and space debris.

Bigelow's engineers are testing the strength of the
sandwich of high-tech fabrics and radiation shielding
that will make up Nautilus's hull by firing high-speed
projectiles at it. They are also testing the hab to
destruction by over-inflating the modules, with the resulting
explosions contained in rigid test cages.

Economies of scale

Nautiluses could be flown as independent space stations
or connected with a docking mechanism to make bigger hotels.
Bigelow sees economies of scale as one of the keys to
profitability, and plans to sell space hotels to rivals
for $100 million each.

It all sounds far-fetched, but like Rutan, Bigelow is
approaching his space ideas methodically, treating
the space hotel like any other real-estate project.
"We act as a general contractor," he says.

He sources materials, tests them to ensure quality, and
tries to match the best materials with the best prices,
just as he would on a terrestrial construction project.
"Good is good," Bigelow says, whether it's on Earth or in orbit.

If all goes well with orbital tests of one-third-scale
test modules to be launched late next year, Bigelow plans
to launch the first habitable Nautilus in 2008, around the
time SpaceDev expects the first private orbital
flights to be happening.

While Starzyk, for one, does not think commercial
orbital vehicles will happen that soon, space flight has
always been fuelled by dreamers daring to expect the impossible.
Time will tell if they are right.

Elevage d'espions en Corée du Nord.

2004-09-06T04:52:50+02:00

<Nouvelle page 1

Le Telegraph nous apprend encore de bonnes nouvelles sur le sympathique régime de
Kim Jong Il :

Celui-ci aurait kidnappé des soldats Américains ainsi que des femmes au
Moyen-Orient pour que leurs enfants puissent devenir des espions au service
du grand leader. Le régime Nord Coréen pratiquait une forme d'élevage
d'enfants pouvant passer pour des Américains. On leur pratiquerait un lavage
du cerveau et les enverrait commes espions aux Etats Unis.

Charmant.

North Korea 'bred spies using former US soldiers'
By Damien McElroy
(Filed: 05/09/2004)

An American army sergeant who spent 40 years in North Korea
has revealed that the Stalinist state operated a programme to
breed spies who could pass themselves off as Westerners.

As a part of a plea-bargain with the American military, who want him court-martialled
on desertion charges, Charles Jenkins has made the extraordinary claim
that other former American soldiers living in North Korea were used to
father children who are now operating as spies abroad.

Mr Jenkins disappeared from a guardbox on the Demilitarised Zone
dividing Korea in 1965. He is now receiving medical treatment in a Tokyo
hospital after being allowed to leave North Korea with his
Japanese wife, but faces attempts to extradite him to the
United States for trial.

According to testimony which Mr Jenkins
will pass to the US, to whom he says he is ready to
surrender, North Korean agents abducted women from eastern Europe
and the Middle East, to be married to American soldiers in
Pyongyang.

In a statement prepared by his American
military lawyer, Mr Jenkins said: "In two of the cases,
the Americans had multiple children who are now young
adults who appear to be American or European."

According to Mr Jenkins's account, the
Americans were allowed to marry only so that they could
produce spies for North Korea, "so they could target
American interests in South Korea and beyond".

To back up his claim,
Mr Jenkins has produced a photograph of five people he
alleges to be spies for North Korea.
They are believed to be the children of three other
American soldiers -
James Dresnok, Larry Abshier and Jerry Wayne - who disappeared into
North Korea during the Cold War.
He says that the photograph was taken in April.

The 64-year-old infantry trooper was
allowed to leave North Korea for the first timesince 1965
in June. He and his two daughters flew first to Indonesia
to meet his Japanese wife, Hitomi Soga, and then on to Japan.

After undergoing corrective treatment for
a botched prostate operation carried out in North Korea,
Mr Jenkins last week promised to turn himself in to
the American military. Since then he has for the
first time spoken of his hatred for the North Korean regime.
Under its control he endured beatings as officials
turned the American soldiers against each other.

The diminutive Mr Jenkins claims that he
was repeatedly bullied by Mr Dresnok.
"If I didn't listen to the North Korean government,
they would tie me up, call Dresnok in to beat me.
Dresnok really enjoyed it," he said.

The claim that North Korea ran a spy
breeding programme is the latest in a long list
of extraordinary operations that North Korea is believed to have
undertaken in its struggle to gain information about the West.

An impoverished hardline Communist state,
the country survives by devoting most of its resources to
arms programmes and drug-running. Its reclusive leader,
Kim Jong-il is known to have installed "pleasure
squads" of young women from Asia and the Middle
East in villas in Pyongyang. He is also fascinated by
the world of espionage and regularly watches James Bond
films in his private cinemas.

Kim has been accused of leading terrorist
operations in the 1980s, including planting a bomb
on a South Korean airliner, killing hundreds of people.

He was widely believed by the West to be
insane until Madeleine Albright, the former American
secretary of state, declared him to be "perfectly
rational" after a summit in 2000.

The American military said last week that
it would provide Mr Jenkins with a uniform and quarters
on a base outside Tokyo when he surrenders.
"We're always ready to take in deserters and receive them
back," said Major John Amberg, a spokesman for the American army in Japan.

Deux poids deux mesures

2004-06-14T11:14:41+02:00

Une entrée sympathique de notre ami Saoudien: Another blow for Religious Freedom http://muttawa.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_muttawa_archive.html#108713992733111148 Cliquez aussi sur l'image

Histoire Belge

2004-06-14T10:59:09+02:00

Une histoire ancienne ( http://users.skynet.be/sostotalitarismes/SOS1.htm ), peut-être, mais qui prouve qu'il est plus que temps de dé-leniniser la gauche et les fonctionnaires. Au sujet de grand humanitaire qu’était Lenine: http://www.asmp.fr/travaux/communications/2003/werth.htm .Extrait:A la question « Qui de Staline ou de Lénine était le plus dur ? », Viatcheslav Molotov, le seul dirigeant bolchevique qui avait servi ces deux maîtres, répondit, sans hésiter : « Lénine, bien sûr ! », avant d’ajouter « C’est lui qui nous a tous formés ». Si l’aura de Staline a été ternie par la déstalinisation, l’image de Lénine – révolutionnaire, stratège de la prise du pouvoir par les bolcheviks, fondateur de l’Union soviétique- n’a guère été écornée, ni dans l’URSS de la perestroïka (l’objectif initial de Mikhaïl Gorbatchev n’était-il pas un utopique « retour aux normes léninistes » ?), ni dans la Russie d’aujourd’hui, ni dans le monde. Aucune statue de Lénine n’a été enlevée en Russie, la momie de Vladimir Ilitch continue de reposer dans son mausolée, et les lycéens français apprennent toujours à distinguer le « bon Lénine » qui a sauvé la Russie soviétique de la « contre-révolution blanche, appuyée par des forces d’intervention étrangères » du « mauvais Staline », qui a gouverné son pays « par la terreur ». Quand viendra le temps de la « déléninisation » ? Et de la condamnation unanime de l’idéologue et du praticien de l’intolérance et de la violence ?

Cosby sur les Afro-Américains

2004-05-21T12:43:36+02:00

Nouvelle page 1

Bill Cosby, le célèbre comédien afro-américain a
choqué tous les cohortes du politically correct über alles lors de la
commémoration du 50ème anniversaire de Brown vs. Board of education. Que
va-t-il lui arriver? Comme tous les autres Afro-américains (Clarence Thomas,
Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell) qui luttent contre le racisme de la
discrimination ~~directe~~ positive, ils ne seront plus considérés comme
Afro-américains, mais comme collaborateurs d’un ennemi raciste (uncle Toms).

"Ladies and
gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.
These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids – $500 sneakers
for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.'

He added:
"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English. I can't even talk
the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... And I blamed the
kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. ...
Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. ...
You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

The Post said Cosby also targeted imprisoned blacks.

"These are not political criminals," he said. "These are people going around stealing
Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound
cake and then we run out and we are outraged, [saying] 'The cops shouldn't have
shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

Competitiveness statistics

2004-05-08T00:28:21+02:00

Nouvelle page 5

Le nouveauWorld Competitive Yearbook de l’IMD pour l’année 2003 est sorti.
Que constatons nous encore ?

Les pays étatistes reculent et les pays ayant un plus grand marché libre
mènent la danse en termes de compétitivité.

Si il est certain qu’il faut prendre en compte le niveau assez haut de l’Euro,
ce n’est pas encore demain que nos démocraties sociales dépasseront les méchants Zaméricains (1^ère place).

La situation s’est tellement dégradée que la Belgique (25^ème)
se trouve même derrière le Japon (23^ème) en pleine crise !
La France et sa capitale quant à elle se trouvent en très enviables 30 et 32^ème places !

Le Yearbook prend en compte des facteurs telsles performances économiques,
l’efficacité du gouvernement (sic),l’efficacité des entreprises etl’infrastructure.

En efficacité du gouvernement, nos beaux pays francophones battent tous les records : 38 et 41^ème
places pour la France et sa capitale et 44^ème place pour la Belgique.
A titre de comparaison, la Malaisie, la Thaïlande, la Chine, la Jordanie,
l’Inde et la Colombie se situent devant nous !

En profitabilité des entreprises,la France se situe aussi au 43^ème rang mondial,
de quoi être extrêmement fiers…

Its the economy, stupid!

2004-05-08T00:18:35+02:00

Nouvelle page 4

Petite information dont le Monde ne parlera sans doute pas:

le chiffre du chômage Américain a encore reculé; en Avril, 288.000 emplois
on été retrouvés, de quoi faire rêver Verhofstadt. 867.000 Emplois avaient
aussi été trouvés depuis le début de cette année, ce qui fait descend le niveau
national du chômage aux Etats Unis à 5.6%. Ces chiffres tombent très mal pour
Flip-Flopy qui trouve décidément de moins en moins de thèmes de campagne.

Par la même occasion, visitez le blog du président himself !

Iran: pro-American country

2004-05-08T00:08:45+02:00

Nouvelle page 2

Le New York Times (!) publie un formidable article d'un journaliste qui
revient d'Iran:

Those Friendly Iranians

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

TEHRAN, Iran

Finally, I've found a pro-American country.

Everywhere I've gone in Iran, with one exception,
people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the
United States, and often for
President Bush as well. Even when I was detained a couple of days ago in the
city of Isfahan for asking a group of young people whether they thought the
Islamic revolution had been a mistake (they did), the police were courteous and
let me go after an apology.

They apologized; I didn't.

On my first day in Tehran, I dropped by the "Den of Spies,"
as the old U.S. Embassy is now called. It's covered with ferocious
murals denouncing America as the "Great Satan" and the
"archvillain of nations" and showing the Statue of Liberty as a skull
(tour the "Den of Spies"here).

Then I stopped to chat with one of the Revolutionary
Guards now based in the complex. He was a young man who quickly confessed
that his favorite movie is "Titanic." "If I could manage it, I'd go
to America tomorrow," he said wistfully.

He paused and added, "To hell with the mullahs."

In the 1960's and 1970's, the U.S. spent millions
backing a pro-Western modernizing shah — and the result was an outpouring of
venom that led to our diplomats' being held hostage. Since then, Iran has been
ruled by mullahs who despise everything we stand for — and now people stop me
in the bazaar to offer paeans to America as well as George Bush.

Partly because being pro-American is a way to take a
swipe at the Iranian regime, anything American, from blue jeans to "Baywatch,"
is revered. At the bookshops, Hillary Clinton gazes out from three different
pirated editions of her autobiography.

`It's a best seller, though it's not selling as well as
Harry Potter," said Heidar Danesh, a bookseller in Tehran. "The other
best-selling authors are John Grisham, Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel."

Young Iranians keep popping the question, "So how can I
get to the U.S.?" I ask why they want to go to a nation denounced for its
"disgustingly sick promiscuous behavior," but that turns
out to be a main attraction. And many
people don't believe a word of the Iranian propaganda.

"We've learned to interpret just the opposite of things
on TV because it's all lies," said Odan Seyyid Ashrafi, a 20-year-old university
student. "So if it says America is awful, maybe that means it's a great place to
live."

Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S.
military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this
with more conviction than your average White House spokesman.

One opinion poll showed that 74 percent of Iranians
want a dialogue with the U.S. — and the finding so irritated the authorities
that they arrested the pollster. Iran is also the only Muslim country I know
where citizens responded to the 9/11 attacks with a spontaneous candlelight
vigil as a show of sympathy.

Iran-U.S. relations are now headed for a crisis over
Tehran's nuclear program, which appears to be so advanced that Iran could
produce its first bomb by the end of next year. The Bush administration is right
to address this issue, but it needs to step very carefully to keep from
inflaming Iranian nationalism and uniting the population behind the regime. We
need to lay out the evidence on satellite television programs that are broadcast
into Iran, emphasizing that the regime is squandering money on a nuclear
weapons program that will further isolate Iranians and damage their economy.

Left to its own devices, the Islamic revolution is
headed for collapse, and there is a better chance of a strongly pro-American
democratic government in Tehran in a decade than in Baghdad. The ayatollahs'
best hope is that hard-liners in Washington will continue their inept diplomacy,
creating a wave of Iranian nationalism that bolsters the regime — as happened
to a lesser degree after President Bush put Iran in the axis of evil.

Oh, that one instance when I was treated inhospitably?
That was in a teahouse near the Isfahan bazaar, where I was interviewing
religious conservatives. They were warm and friendly, but a group of people two
tables away went out of their way to be rude, yelling at me for being an
American propagandist. So I finally encountered hostility in Iran — from a table
full of young Europeans.

Flip-Flopy

2004-05-07T23:52:40+02:00

Flip-flopy fait encore des sienn

Flip-flopy fait encore des siennes:

"found video of Kerry telling environmentally conscious New Hampshire voters that he
sold his gas guzzlers to buy fuel-efficient autos and just one month later, in
Michigan car country, giving a long list of big-engine vehicles he owns–including
two SUVs, one imported."

Kerry's Vietnam Doc: Wound Accidentally Self-Inflicted

The Navy medic who treated Sen. John Kerry
after he sustained his first battlefield wound in Vietnam said Tuesday that he
thought that the injury had been inadvertently self-inflicted - raising new
questions about why Kerry sought a Purple Heart after the incident.

Contacted by National Review Online,
Dr. Louis Letson recalled that Kerry insisted during treatment that he was
injured by enemy fire while his swift boat was patrolling the Mekong Delta on
Dec. 2, 1968. However, "some of his crew confided that they did not
receive any fire from shore," the Navy doc told NRO. Instead, his crewmen
claimed that Kerry "had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on
shore." One crewman told Letson that he thought Kerry's injury "was caused
by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks."
Concluded Letson, "That seemed to fit the injury which I treated." He
described the top Democrat's wound as "a small piece of metal sticking very
superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm.

"The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and
was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a
rifle." Letson recalled that he "simply removed the piece of metal by
lifting it out of the skin with forceps. "I doubt that it penetrated
more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any
anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.
"The wound was covered with a bandaid," Dr. Letson said. Based on the
bandaid wound that was likely a result of a mortar round he fired, Kerry sought
and eventually received his first Purple Heart.

Et aussi:

Kerry 'Unfit to be Commander-in-Chief,' Say Former Military Colleagues
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 03, 2004

(2nd Add: Includes additional details about Sen. John Kerry's ad campaign.)

(CNSNews.com) - Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of
presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter
that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press
conference in Washington on Tuesday.

"What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in
dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol
Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, which is
expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly
formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding
officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit
to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.

O'Neill, currently a Houston, Texas, based attorney, is no stranger to Kerry.
O'Neill served in the same naval unit as Kerry and commanded Kerry's swift boat
after Kerry returned to the United States. Kerry's command of the PCF boat
lasted four months and ended shortly after he received his third Purple Heart.
According to naval regulations at the time, any sailor who received three Purple
Hearts could request a transfer out of the combat zone.

Kerry and O'Neill engaged in a nationally televised debate in 1971 on The Dick
Cavett Show over Kerry's allegations that many Vietnam soldiers had routinely
engaged in atrocities such as raping and cutting off ears and heads of
Vietnamese soldiers and citizens. Kerry was the then spokesman for the anti-war
group Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

"We are going to be presenting a letter that deals with Kerry's unfitness to be
commander and chief that has been signed by hundreds of swift boat sailors,
including most of those who served with Kerry," O'Neill explained.

"The ranks of the people signing [the letter] range from admiral down to seaman,
and they run across the entire spectrum of politics, specialties, and political
feelings about the Vietnam War," he added.

Among those scheduled to attend the event at the National Press Club and declare
Kerry unfit for the role of commander-in-chief are retired Naval Rear Admiral
Roy Hoffmann, who was the commander of the Navy Coastal Surveillance Force,
which included the swift boats on which Kerry served.

Also scheduled to be present at the event is Kerry's former commanding officer,
Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard. Hibbard recently questioned whether Kerry deserved
the first of his three Purple Hearts that he received in Vietnam. Hibbard
doubted both the severity of the wound and whether it resulted from enemy fire.

"I've had thorns from a rose that were worse" than Kerry's wound for which he
received a Purple Heart, Hibbard told the Boston Globe in April.

Organizers are confident that Tuesday's event and the letter with hundreds of
signatures will educate people about Kerry.

"It is one of the largest outpourings of concern about him being
commander-in-chief that anybody could have in a presidential campaign and it is
by the people who know him best," O'Neill said.

'Unfit Commander-in-Chief'

Swift Boat Veterans For Truth maintains that Kerry's fellow Vietnam veterans are
almost uniform in their disdain for his military service and anti-war protests.

"Not only a majority of the people who served with him feel that way, but a vast
and overwhelming majority," O'Neill said. He added that more than "ninety
percent of the people contacted by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth responded to
the request to sign their name, with only 12 declining to sign.

"Comrades who actually served with him, almost all of them, are opposed to him,
and believe he would be an unfit commander in chief and intend to bring the
truth of his actual record to the attention of the American people," O'Neill
said.

O'Neill hopes the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth can reveal to the American
people what he sees as Kerry's flawed character.

"In the military, loyalty between commanders and the troops serving them is a
two-way street. We have here a guy (Kerry) that with all of us in the field [in
Vietnam] -- actually fighting the North Vietnamese -- came home and then falsely
accused all of us of war crimes at a time when the people in uniform couldn't
even respond," O'Neill said.

"And he did that knowing that was a lie," he added.

'Real John Kerry'

B. G. Burkett, author of the book Stolen Valor and a military researcher,
believes that Tuesday's event will not be dismissed easily by Kerry's campaign
as a "partisan" attack.

"There are probably just as many Democrats amongst sailors who sailed swift
boats as there are Republicans. What Kerry fails to realize is this has nothing
to do with politics -- this has to with Vietnam Veterans who served, who have a
beef with John Kerry's service, both during and after the war," Burkett told CNSNews.com.

"The American people do not know John Kerry and hopefully the swift boat crews
and other Vietnam veterans will make sure that the American public knows the
real John Kerry," he added.

GAZA Judenrein?

2004-05-07T23:34:36+02:00

Nouvelle page 1

Abandoning Gaza will not end terrorism

By Jeff Jacoby

Savages don't deserve a state

Meirav, the 2-year-old, had been strapped into a car seat for safety. But car seats are no
protection against bullets, and by the time rescue workers reached the Citroen
station wagon, Meirav was dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. So was
her 7-year-old sister, Roni. And Hadar, the 9-year-old. And Hila, 11. One by
one, each had been shot at point-blank range.

In the driver's seat, their mother was dead too. Tali Hatuel, 34, was a social
worker who was often called upon to comfort and assist victims of terrorism.
Eight months pregnant with her first boy, she had been driving to Ashkelon on
Sunday for an ultrasound exam. Then she and the girls had planned to join her
husband David at an election precinct to urge voters to oppose the controversial
Israeli referendum on unilaterally "disengaging" from the Gaza Strip.

But David never saw his wife and daughters alive again. He buried them Sunday
evening, sobbing with grief and surrounded by thousands of mourners in
Ashkelon's new cemetery. "You were my flowers," he wept. "I am all alone and
there is no one left."

Not long after the slaughter of the Hatuel family, two terror groups — Islamic
Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committee — proudly claimed responsibility in a
call to the Associated Press. The official Voice of Palestine radio praised the
quintuple murder as a "heroic" operation against "five settlers," not bothering
to mention that the victims were an unarmed pregnant woman and four children.

The savagery of the attack was similarly downplayed by National Public Radio in
its broadcast the next morning. Actually, reporter Julie McCarthy did more than
minimize the horror of the massacre. She blamed the victims for "provoking"
their own murder — not by anything they did, but by their mere "presence" in the
disputed territory.

"The settlers rallied
support [against the referendum], saying Israel was withdrawing under fire,"
McCarthy reported, "but there was ample evidence yesterday to show that their
continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed. Israeli troops shot dead two
Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters
outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif. The family was shot and killed on
their way to the Israeli city of Ashkelon."

In NPR's warped moral calculus, Tali Hatuel and her children are in early graves
not because Palestinian culture celebrates the mass-murder of Jews, but because
Jews have no business living among Arabs. If McCarthy had been reporting from
Birmingham in September 1963, would she have blamed the bombing of the Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church on the provocative "presence" of the four black girls who
died in the explosion?

The Hatuels opposed Ariel Sharon's proposed Gaza pullout because they understood
that unilaterally surrendering land to Hamas and the PLO could only result in
more terror and bloodshed, not less. If the past decade — the era of the "land
for peace" delusion — has made anything clear, it is that the more Israel
concedes to the Palestinians, the worse Palestinian terror becomes. Abandoning
Gaza will not make the Arabs more peaceful. It will simply strengthen their
conviction that Israelis can be defeated through terrorism, and make Gaza a more
effective staging-area for violent attacks on Jews.

Notwithstanding the defeat of Sunday's referendum, Sharon says he still intends
to go forward with his "disengagement" from Gaza. That presumably will mean the
uprooting of some 8,000 Gazan Jews from the homes, farms, and schools they have
built over the past quarter-century. The State Department and the United Nations
will cheer the sight of Gaza being ethnically cleansed of its Jewish population
— being rendered Judenrein, as the Nazis used to say. But having approved
Sharon's expulsion of Jews from territory largely occupied by Arabs, what will
they say if he then proposes to expel Arabs from places whose majority is Jewish?

No: Arab-Israeli peace will not be won by dragging people, kicking and screaming,
from their homes. Nor will it be won by giving land and statehood to the
gangsters who run Hamas and Fatah. Abandoning the field to the terrorists will
not make the terrorism stop.

The only workable recipe for lasting Middle East peace is the enormously
difficult one of remaking Palestinian society from the bottom up. Of destroying
its poisonous culture of violence, death-worship, and Jew-hatred. Of educating
its people for democracy and tolerance. Of replacing its cruel and corrupt
rulers with leaders genuinely committed to moderation.

Only when — only if — such a transformation takes place will the Palestinians be
ready for statehood. To confer sovereignty on them now would be disastrous, a
guarantee of violence for years to come. If there is one thing a regime that can
call the execution of a mother and her four daughters "heroic" doesn't need, it
is a reward.

JWR contributor Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist.

La Belgique vue de Londres

2004-05-02T14:55:18+02:00

Le Times publie un fantastique article sur la Belgique:
I've seen the future: it's scary and Belgian
STEPHEN POLLARD
THE PRIME MINISTER makes much of the “scare stories” and “myths” which opponents of further deepening of the EU supposedly propagate. They are based, apparently, on paranoia, and are products of not-so-latent xenophobia.
Well here’s a very scary story which is not speculation but fact. This week democracy — the right to vote for the party you wish to support — ended inside one EU member state.

On Wednesday, the Belgian judiciary banned a political party from operating in Belgium. The reason? The country’s political establishment dislikes its views. The party it banned is not some obscure fringe organisation but one which has 18 MPs in the 150-seat Belgian parliament, many local councillors and two MEPs. The opinion polls were predicting that it could win the most Belgian votes at the European and local elections in June.
The banned party is Vlaams Blok (VB). The Court of Appeal in Ghent — notorious for its left-liberal bias — deemed it to be an “undemocratic and racist” organisation because of its policy that immigrants should be given only two choices: “to assimilate or to return home”.
Maybe such a policy is indeed racist; maybe it isn’t. The VB itself, which has much in common with the Fortuyn List in the Netherlands, has been accused of this. But in a democracy, surely, that is a decision which voters should make, not judges. But the VB’s racism was merely an excuse. The real reason why the Belgian authorities have been bent on banning the VB for years has nothing to do with racism and the rights of immigrants. It is that the party advocates secession from Belgium and the establishment of a Republic of Flanders. Worse still, as Belgium’s only conservative party it upsets the country’s cosy political applecart. The Belgian Establishment has responded not by defeating it in argument but by banning it.
After Wednesday’s ruling, it is now illegal to distribute VB publications and its politicians are barred from state radio and television. The party is appealing against the ruling, but the Belgian judiciary’s predisposition to do the bidding of the political class means that the appeal has almost no chance of succeeding. When the ban is confirmed, the VB will be proclaimed a criminal organisation and disbanded, unable to exist, let alone to field candidates and argue its case.
I hold no brief for the VB; and were I to have a vote in Flanders, I would not vote for it. But that is not the point. What happened in Ghent on Wednesday is a frightening, but classic demonstration of the political mindset which lies behind the EU’s “ever-closer union”: if you do not sign up to certain beliefs then your politics are, by definition, beyond the pale and thus illegitimate.
The ruling was merely the latest in a series of attempts to destroy the VB because of the threat it posed to the Belgian status quo. In 1999, “undemocratic and racist” parties were banned from receiving state funding (private donations of more than 125 euros are illegal in Belgium). This decision was immediately followed by an action against the VB on those grounds. When a Flemish judge refused to issue a judgment, arguing that these were matters for the electorate rather than the courts, the head of the Centre for Equal Opportunities, the quango which had brought the case said that he would continue appealing until he had found a judge who would find against the VB. This week one emerged: Alain Smetrijns, who happens also to be the chairman of the Lions Club in Ghent, a francophone pro-Belgian unity group.
Belgium is in many ways a mini-EU: an artificial state created (much like Europe’s three former such states, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) as a result of political ideology rather than any sense of national unity, and held together by a political class which is prepared to subvert democracy to achieve its ends. Add to that a judiciary which, far from being independent of the political establishment, is an important part of the problem — and you have a recipe for what took place in Ghent this week: democracy, Belgian-style, in which you may vote only for a party whose views are approved by the elites.
The actions may be specific to Belgium, but the lesson is of wider import. The EU is in the process of becoming just such an artificial state. The fate of the Vlaams Blok shows that worries about the future of democracy are not scare stories. They are real dangers and they are with us today.

The author is a senior Fellow at the Centre for the New Europe, a Brussels-based think tank.

Réponse à l'article du Times

2004-05-02T14:30:59+02:00

Un lecteur m'envoie une réponse qu'un certain Drieu Godefridi a envoyé
au Times concernant l'article mentionné ci-dessus:

Letter to the editor of "The Times",

April 29, 2004

Dear Sir,

This letter in reaction to your article on the banning by the Belgian judiciary
of a political party, the Vlaams Blok, because of its racism
(your April 24 edition).
The author writes that "the VB's racism was merely an excuse"
and that the real reason was that the VB advocates secession of Flanders
from Belgium -- "an artificial state created (...) as a result of political ideology"
-- and that "as Belgium's only conservative party -the VB- upsets the country's
cosy political applecart."

May I submit that this is not only false, but utterly ridiculous.
First, the banning was by an all-Flemish court of law.
Second, the VB has nothing to do with conservatism in the
Anglo-American sense, and everything to do with Jean-Marie Le Pen's
Front National, Jord Haider's FPÖ or the British National Party.
That kind of so-called "conservatism" is better named etatism
and nationalism. Thirdly, Belgium is certainly no more artificial than,
say, the United Kingdom, and there is a difference :
the "linguistic question" in Belgium has never caused the death of
a single person. There is nothing like a Flemish or Walloon IRA,
if you see what I mean.

Finally, as the director of one of the leading conservative,
classical-liberal think-tanks in Belgium, the Hayek Institute
(http://www.fahayek.org), and as a regular reader of "The Times",
let me suggest you to better check your sources next time you write
on conservatism in Belgium.

Yours faithfully

Drieu Godefridi

av. Louise, 2/3
1050 Bruxelles
Belgium
+32 2/6407393
+32 475/319936
fax +3210 867779
info@notisumus.com

Sex Education Class (puberty talk)

2004-04-30T05:11:12+02:00

Pour vous divertir, je vous conseille une des meilleures entrées sur le blog de Mahmood:

Sex Education Class(Puberty Talk)

ME: So Arif had hisfirst sex education (puberty talk) class a couple of days ago!
EVERYBODY: absolute silence, a few red faces, spoons and forks left hanging
between the plates and mouths.
ARIF: DAD!
FRANCES (mywife) shakes her head and LOOKS at me.
ME: what? Did I say something wrong?
ME: So Arif, what makes a man then?
ARIF: DAD! STOP IT!
ME: Why? It's okay to talk about it! So tell me:
ARIF (plucking up a major dose of courage):
boysgetbonersandtheygrowhairandstarttostinkandtheystarttomakesperm

A lire en entier...

Milices privées à Bruxelles (enfin!)

2004-04-30T03:51:08+02:00

Je me demande quelle mouche à piqué ces bourgmestres, chercheraient-ils enfin
de vraies solutions (le secteur privé) aux problèmes
dans leurs communes?

http://www.lalibre.be/article.phtml?id=10&subid=90&art_id=164406

Les deux Woluwe font confiance au privé

Le projet nourri par les bourgmestres des communes bruxelloises fait jaser.

Les bourgmestres des deux Woluwe (Saint-Pierre et Saint-Lambert)
ont confirmé leur intention
de recourir à des services de gardiennage privés pendant l'été pour mieux lutter
contre la criminalité.
Ils ont précisé que les gardiens n'interviendraient pas.
La formule tiendra-t-elle sur le plan juridique?
Même Georges Désir (St-Lambert) s'en inquiète.
Dans les rangs du PS, qui participe à la majorité communale à Etterbeek
et a son mot à dire au sein de la zone de police
concernée, c'est un refus catégorique.

Jacques Vandenhaute (St-Pierre) a affirmé que la proposition soumise mercredi
au conseil communal existe depuis un an.
A ses yeux, il s'agirait de mettre sur le terrain des agents non armés
qui avertiraient la police des situations suspectes.
Le bourgmestre de Saint-Lambert s'est montré plus évasif et plus prudent.
Le dossier n'a pas encore été soumis au conseil
communal de sa commune.

Benoît Cerexhe, chef de groupe CDH au Parlement bruxellois, s'indigne et s'oppose à l'idée.
«A six semaines des élections régionales, on se rendrait subitement compte
qu'il existe un problème
d'insécurité à Woluwe-Saint-Pierre»,
s'étonne-t-il, qualifiant le projet de démagogique et de dangereux,
dans le contexte de menace que font
peser les partis extrémistes sur Bruxelles.
M. Cerexhe estime que la mission de sécurisation de l'espace public doit rester
une compétence exclusive des services de police.

The left vs reality

2004-04-24T19:13:55+02:00

Un des meilleurs articles parus dans le Jerusalem Post, sur la réalité confrontée à l'idéologie de gauche:

Feb. 13, 2003
Confusing intellectuals with the factsBy JONATHAN ROSENBLUM
Why are smart people so congenitally dumb? Why are those most suited to discussing Shakespeare and Stendahl so hopelessly incompetent to run the affairs of the world? As a former dummy, these questions hold particular fascination for me.
One of the keys to this mystery, it strikes me, is a persistent anti-empirical bias among intellectuals. Theories of how the world works are generated for emotional and esthetic reasons, not on the basis of observed facts. Because the source of these theories is emotional need, they are immune to reality testing; once produced in the ether, these theories cannot be shaken.
After Secretary of State Colin Powell's UN speech, Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory spoke of her distress at being confronted by Powell's powerful evidence. President George Bush and his advisers were not "people whose banner I could follow," and besides, "among the people I know, nobody was for the war," she wrote.
Here is a woman paid handsomely to comment on current events admitting, without embarrassment, that her opinions on the great matters of state are a function of social taste and what is acceptable among the herd of independent thinkers.
The enduring belief of our local "wise men" in the Oslo process is a classic example of a worldview dictated by emotional need. Oslo architect Yossi Beilin simply cannot give up the idea that Yasser Arafat is a peace partner. Nothing - not the Karine A, not orders transferring money to terrorists signed by Arafat, not his calls for jihad, and not the continual incitement in Palestinian schools and media - can convince him that Arafat never accepted the idea of lasting peace with Israel.
As a government minister, Beilin was privy to intelligence reports that the Palestinians were planning a massive return to violence after the breakdown of Camp David, and he has heard subsequent confirmation from Palestinian ministers that the "al-Aksa intifada" was long planned. Yet he continues to assert that if only Ariel Sharon had not walked on the Temple Mount, none of this would have happened.
Oslo fulfilled an emotional need for Beilin - the need to believe in a world in which peace is possible. As long as that emotional need remains, Oslo remains an idee fixe.
Psychiatry, not evidence, is the only cure.
IN A DEBATE a little more than a year ago, a leading American Middle East expert triumphantly demanded of me: "What's the alternative?" as if he had made some kind of argument.
Admittedly it is unpleasant living with the realization that the wolf and lamb will not lie down together any time soon, but trying to avoid that unpleasant recognition by denying reality is downright dangerous.
The best Amram Mitzna's academic supporters could offer prior to the last election was that he at least offers "some hope." Hope is a wonderful thing, and life without it is a dismal affair, but the need for hope cannot be the basis for evaluating the reality around us.
I do not mean to discount the necessity of vision in human affairs. To do so is itself a form of anti-empirical irrationality. Any student of military history knows that many of history's greatest battles were determined, not by the numbers and firepower arrayed on each side, but by the morale and determination of the opposing armies.
One of the great failures of Oslo was the tendency of Israelis to extrapolate from their own mindset in evaluating Palestinian intentions. Religious fervor and attachment to the land were systematically downplayed because in the eyes of Israeli policymakers they are irrational.
No vision is more powerful than that of the messianic age offered by our prophets. Yet had Judaism offered only a messianic vision, without enriching the day-to-day lives of its adherents, it could never have survived. Visions detached from reality cannot sustain themselves over time, though they can wreak tremendous havoc.
I will confess to being stirred by a vision of Iraqis freed from the horror of Saddam Hussein's regime of terror. Like Beilin, I also want to believe the world can be a better place. But hopefully the vision of a Middle East transformed by Saddam's removal is rooted in a realistic analysis of the desires and capabilities of the Iraqi people and of the likely impact of the fall of Saddam on neighboring countries.
In Iran, his fall will make it that much harder for the mullahs to retain control over a restless population. And in Syria, where 1,000 flowers of democracy are not yet ready to bloom, Saddam's removal will convince the regime of the dangers of harboring terrorists and threatening one's neighbors with them.
THE ANTI-EMPIRICISM of the intellectuals renders them oblivious to the real-world consequences of their ideas. At their most extreme, utopian visions hatched in university lecture halls lead to futile attempts to mold human nature to fit the vision.
In Cambodia, that effort resulted in the death of millions.
More mundane examples abound. New York City feminists fiercely opposed a plan to establish a single-sex high school for minority women. Overwhelming social science evidence that such a school would dramatically enhance the academic achievement of the female students failed to move the opponents. The actual lives of poor minority students meant nothing to the feminists - few of whom had ever experienced the terror of inner city education - next to the proscription against any distinctions on the basis of gender.
Anti-war protesters around the world have hardened their hearts to the suffering of 23 million Iraqis. What is their suffering compared to the principle of national sovereignty?
High principles overcome even the elemental human urge for self-preservation. Thus a writer to the Yale Law School Alumni Magazine opines that even if the United States knew that Iraq was about to strike with weapons of mass destruction, it would nevertheless have to await that strike, lest it become "the aggressor."
Even supposedly objective scientists often find it difficult to confront uncomfortable facts. Right-thinking (i.e. left-thinking) people all know that George Bush is a troglodyte for withdrawing from the Kyoto Accords. Yet Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg argues in The Skeptical Environmentalist that even if pursued until 2100, Kyoto would lessen projected global warning by little more than half a degree. Meanwhile the $150 billion annual cost of enforcing the treaty would be sufficient to eliminate forever the unsanitary drinking water that today kills two million people a year.
That was not the kind of talk many in the scientific community wished to hear. Science and Scientific American, two leading science magazines, mounted broadscale attacks on Lomborg's book, and then made every effort to block Lomborg from responding. In his homeland, a governmental body called the Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty found Lomborg guilty of scientific dishonesty. Yet the committee conducted no independent evaluation of the scientific disputes. It contented itself with quoting at length from four negative reviews in Scientific American. The committee further noted ominously that America is the largest energy consumer in the world, and that the book sold well there.
The committee barely mentioned that Lomborg had demolished his critics in a paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttal (see www.greenspirit.com/lomborg). Indeed, the force of Lomborg's rebuttal was held against him: his failure to accept the massive, mostly ad hominem, attacks was cited as proof of his lack of scientific temperament.
We should be grateful God did not create more smart people.

On a raté l'heureux événement du siècle

2004-04-23T07:31:10+02:00

On a raté l'heureux événement du siècle: Kim Jong Il est presque mort dans un accident de train qui a couté la via à 3.000 personnes.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,117872,00.html

le FMI et la croissance

2004-04-22T11:41:19+02:00

Dans le World Economic Outlook 2004, le Fond Monétaire International évoque les prédictions de croissance pour l’année 2004 :

Croissance pour les Etats Unis

Croissance nulle pour l’Europe

Qaund l’Europe va-t-elle enfin comprendre et débuter ses réformes structurelles ?

Sowell sur la diversité culturelle

2004-04-19T21:57:46+02:00

En 1990, Thomas Sowell reçut le Francis Boyer Award de l'American Enterprise Institute. Le discours qu'il donna à cette occasion est un chef d'œuvre:

The very motto of the country-- E Pluribus Unum-- recognizes the diversity of the American people. For generations, this diversity has been celebrated, whether in comedies like Abie's Irish Rose (the famous play featuring a Jewish boy and an Irish girl) or in patriotic speeches on the Fourth of July. Yet one senses something very different in today's crusades for "diversity"-- certainly not a patriotic celebration of America and often a sweeping criticism of the United States, or even a condemnation of Western civilization as a whole.

The historic sharing of cultural advances, until they became the common inheritance of the human race, implied much more than cultural diversity. It implied that some cultural features were not only different from others but better than others. The very fact that people-- all people, whether Europeans, Africans, Asians, or others-- have repeatedly chosen to abandon some feature of their own culture in order to replace it with something from another culture implies that the replacement served their purposes more effectively: Arabic numerals are not simply different from Roman numerals, they are better than Roman numerals. This is shown by their replacing Roman numerals in many countries whose own cultures derived from Rome, as well as in other countries whose respective numbering systems were likewise superseded by so-called Arabic numerals.

If nations and civilizations differ in their effectiveness in different fields of endeavor, so do social groups. Here there is especially strong resistance to accepting the reality of different levels and kinds of skills, interests, habits, and orientations among different groups of people. One academic writer, for example, said that nineteenth-century Jewish immigrants to the United States were fortunate to arrive just as the garment industry in New York began to develop. I could not help thinking that Hank Aaron was similarly fortunate-- that he often came to bat just as a home run was due to be hit. It might be possible to believe that these Jewish immigrants just happened to be in the right place at the right time if you restricted yourself to their history in the United States. But, again taking a world view, we find Jews prominent, often predominant, and usually prospering, in the apparel industry in medieval Spain, in the Ottoman Empire, in the Russian Empire, in Argentina, in Australia, and in Brazil. How surprised should we be to find them predominant in the same industry in America?

A lire en entier bien évidemment ;-)

Anniversaire émouvant

2004-04-19T21:27:03+02:00

Ce texte émouvant encore sur Iraq the Model, pour fêtre les 1 an de libération de l'Irak:

The first candle.
-
It’s the day that brought me back to life. It’s the 9th of April and I’m free, and they will not steel my joy again and they will not silence me. A year ago at the same date, the thieves and criminals prevented me from celebrating my freedom in the open air, and today thieves, criminals and fanatics are doing the same, but they will not steal my happiness that is making my soul fly and dance with joy and they can’t stop this.

A year ago, words failed me as I met the 1st American soldier, and I still remember his name, “corporal, Adam” and all I could utter was “thank you!” how could I ever put my whole life in few words? How could I have thanked that soldier enough? How could I have told him what it meant to me to see him and his comrades-who brought me back to life- at last? Thank you Adam, Lieutenant Antonio, Captain Brian Curtis and all the coalition soldiers who I can’t remember their names, and those I never met.

It’s the 9th of April and I feel safe! And I don’t care what those ‘political experts’ on the newspapers and TV channels, say about the ‘occupation’, deteriorated security and ‘unemployment’. You can’t understand this, because you never experienced real fear this long. Let me tell you about it, as I’m one of those who passed Saddam’s filthy test of life.
The statue fell and with it, horror fell. You don’t know what it means to be scared to death most of your life, brothers and sisters. I knew that and I faced it during the reign of evil and darkness. I was afraid to talk, I wasn't allowed to think and I wasn't allowed to feel…I wasn't allowed to love.

How dare anyone imply to me how should I feel? And who they think they are, those who try to put words in my mouth? I’m alive and I’m free, and I have the right to say whatever I feel and chose the words I like. No one will tell me again what to say and what to feel.
Yes, it’s the 9th of April. I lit the 1st candle today to celebrate my 1st year, as a free man and no one will prevent me from celebrating. I, who the earth is no longer enough to contain my feelings, I who have wings now, and I don’t have to carry an ID…I’m Iraqi. I have the right to wander through my country southwards and northwards, without being stopped by someone to ask me who I am and where I’m going. I’m the son of the 9th of April.

Years ago, when I was a fugitive, a Ba’athist who’s a friend of my father and a relative said to me mockingly “how long are you going to live like this!? Get out of this ‘hole’ and turn yourself in to the authorities and do your military service.” I looked at him and I couldn’t say anything, but my soul screamed inside me, “The day when your tyrant becomes a defeated fugitive will come. He will search for a hole to hide in, and I will own Iraq then”. And here comes the dream true!

I’m the son of the 9th of April, tyrant’s clowns, and you have to fear me, you who betrayed me every minute and every day, and you want to chain me again???
You know why it’s impossible now? I was a slave and I never knew who I am…. and now I’m free! Thanks to all who dared to tell the truth and didn’t fear the consequences. And as for you, who saved me and my people, I can’t thank you enough. My voice goes feeble and my eyes swell with tears as I think of the Iraqis, Americans and all the coalition soldiers who gave their lives to free Iraq and make this world a better place. God bless their souls and all those who decided to fight to the end and never been discouraged, even in the toughest moments. I hope you can call me brother, because I’ll never fail you, as you never failed me.
This time, the 9th of April has come again and in what way! The powers of darkness and evil are trying to stifle my candle with their foul breaths but this time I'm alive and free and I will face them, and I will lit it again and again …and again.

By Mohammed.

Différentes attitudes

2004-04-19T21:19:29+02:00

Omar de Iraq the Model a écrit un petit article très intéressant où l'on voit la différence entre les ressortissants de nations différentes du Golfe:

I've been visiting the BBC Arabic site in the last few days and I found a forum where people from many Arab countries –including Iraq- post their opinions about some hot topics, the main of those is Iraq and terrorism of course. I wasn't surprised to see that most Arabs (especially from Egypt, Palestine, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Syria) are forming one side of the debates while Iraqis and people from the rest of the gulf countries are taking the other side. But I was surprised when I found that the almost all the Iraqis who took part in the debates are on our side, maybe 95% of Iraqis expressed their rejection to the violent behavior of some Iraqis and condemned the terrorists attacks on both Iraqis and the coalition saying that the Arab world must stop supporting the terrorists and the thugs from inside Iraq. It's also surprising that many of those Iraqis live in areas that are recognized to have a public anti American attitude in general like A'adhamiya, Diyala and Najaf. I feel that those people are still afraid to voice their points of view in public in such hostile atmospheres but the internet is providing them freedom and safety to say whatever they believe in.
Here, I translated three of the posts made by Iraqis and for those who can read Arabic or have a way to translate web pages, here's the link.

"What's happening in Fallujah and Baghdad now is the doings of the enemies of Iraq and his people and I mean our "brother Muslims and Arabs" who fear that the fire might reach their kingdoms and let Iraqis go to hell. Iran is supporting Muqtada while our Arab brothers are sending us human bombs to kill our children and all this is in the name of Islam and Arab nationality and the satellite channels are tearing apart and distorting the reputation of every honest Iraqi patriot saying that he's a dirty American agent, so for god sake, enough of what you're doing to Iraq and Iraqis. We did nothing to harm you, so what is this all about?".
Zahawi-baghdad

"To put things clear, we should know who is supporting Sadr, they're a bunch of lost men who spent their lives serving in Saddam's army and he found no one else to support him. The solid truth is that those thugs need to be taught a lesson and this may be in various ways. Iraq must be saved from those men in any possible way".
Abdul Hussein – Hilla

"The martial show for the Mahdi army that Muqtada made is tearing apart the national unity and therefore Iraq needs the liberating forces to remain to prevent the country which was the origin of civilization from being ruled by fanatics who can see no far than their chins".
Saad Yaseen-Diyala.

C'est marrant, les pays les plus critiques de ce qui se passe actuellement sont aussi les moins libres.

Arafat

2004-04-19T21:08:20+02:00

The Robber Barron of the Middle East

Wherever I stand, I stand with Israel

2004-04-19T21:05:00+02:00

Les Israéliens ont toujours de bonnes idées, comme par exemple envoyer des pizzas aux soldats de Tsahal pour soutenir le moral des soldats. Un de mes amis m'a dit que ça lui avait fait très plaisir de recevoir une tarte envoyée par une écolière lorsqu'il était au Sud-Liban. Aujourd'hui vu le climat qui règne et le nombre de touriste restreint, les pizzerias israéliennes ne gagnent pas beaucoup d'argent. Onze d'entr-elles proposent donc ce service qui leur permet de gagner de l'argent et permet de soutenir Israel (à travèrs ceux qui défendent les civils).

In these troubled times, friends of Israel around the world are looking for tangible ways to share their feelings with our Israeli soldiers and also to support the Israeli economy. From this site you can send Pizza and Soda to active duty soldiers who, day after day, are fighting terror and protecting the Jewish people.

As a result of the Arab terror campaign, there is now virtually no tourism to Israel. Your gifts help support many people here in Israel. The eleven pizzerias and eateries we use are very grateful for the business that our project provides.

Les libertariens et le GOP

2004-04-19T19:46:12+02:00

Randy Barnett, auteur de Restoring the Lost Constitution : The Presumption of Liberty et de The Structure of Liberty avait écrit dans le National Review de novembre 2002 une liste de choses qui devraient être changées dans le parti Républicain si celui-ci avait envie de s'approprier les votes des libertariens. Extraits:

Oppose intrusions into privacy…

Oppose intrusions upon the Bill of Rights…
Nominate more libertarian-conservative judges like Clarence Thomas to the courts who care about protecting individual liberty, not just traditionalist-conservative judges like Robert Bork who care most about the "liberty" of the majority to enshrine its preferences into law. (His words not mine.) Appoint judges who care about federalism, the Second Amendment, and also about the First Amendment and the unenumerated rights "retained by the people" referred to in the Ninth Amendment. The more Republicans do this, the more trusted they will be by libertarians and I cannot imagine this costing them votes from the middle swing voters. The more they fail to do this, the more votes they will lose to Libertarian-party candidates.
Care about federalism in the Congress…

Care more about the free market…

Back off Prohibition…

Unless, of course, Republicans don't really want those extra senators and governors.

Ces arguments sont encore plus d'actualité aujourd'hui qu'en 2002

Aubade 7

2004-04-12T18:12:27+02:00

Vodka Flirt position

2004-04-12T18:12:01+02:00

Deux très intéressants articles sur le blog de David Mayer

2004-04-12T18:06:47+02:00

Deux très intéressants articles sur le blog de David Mayer:

Le premier sur le « liberal bias » dans les campus Américains

One way in which the left-liberal bias influences the way professors teach is their tendency to use the technique that Ayn Rand called “the argument from intimidation.” She describes it as a type of argument, resembling the ad hominem fallacy, that is not really an argument at all but rather a means of forestalling debate by psychological pressure. “The essential characteristic of the Argument from Intimidation is its appeal to moral self-doubt and its reliance on the fear, guilt, or ignorance of the victim. It is used in the form of an ultimatum demanding that the victim renounce a given idea without discussion, under threat of being considered morally unworthy. The pattern is always: `Only those who are evil (dishonest, heartless, insensitive, ignorant, etc.) can hold such an idea.’” Rand’s examples cite explicit uses of the technique – “Surely you are not an advocate of capitalism, are you?” uttered with a tone of “scornful or belligerent incredulity.” Or, to use another of her examples, “`Professor X?’ (X standing for the name of a distinguished theorist of free-enterprise economics.) ‘Are you quoting Professor X? Oh no, not really!’ – followed by a sarcastic chuckle intended to convey that Professor X had been thoroughly discredited. (By whom? Blank out.)”

Et le second sur la « Pledge of Alliance » qui serait anti-constitutionnelle et non-Américaine.

As the Declaration expressly affirms, the United States was founded on one basic political principle: that the individual is sovereign. That means, in terms of religion, that the individual is free to believe whatever he wishes and to act on those beliefs, provided he does not harm others or interfere with their equal rights to freedom.

Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which declared that “the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction.”

6th Aubade

2004-04-12T15:42:27+02:00

Kerry et le "service communeautaire"

2004-04-12T15:31:02+02:00

John Kerry wants to make every high school student in America a “volunteer”.

On September 11th, 2001, America experienced the most terrible and deadly attack in its history. John Kerry believes we need to think big and do better and get more young Americans serving the nation.

As part of his 100 day plan to change America, John Kerry will propose a comprehensive service plan that includes requiring mandatory service for high school students and four years of college tuition in exchange for two years of national service.

As President, John Kerry will ensure that every high school student in America does community service as a requirement for graduation. John Kerry understands that young people have many obligations and recognizes that a service requirement should not be onerous or unrealistic for students to meet. Maryland and numerous school districts around the country already have such a requirement and have had great results. Knowledge of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship - including the duty to serve your community - are as important to American adults as knowing how to read and do math. Combined with a curriculum that teaches students about democracy, citizenship and civic participation, this high school service requirement will be a rite of passage for every young person in the country. States would design service programs that meet their community and educational needs. John Kerry does not believe in unfunded mandates. No state would be obligated to implement a service requirement if the federal government does not live up to its obligation to fund the program.

[John Kerry for President - A New Era of National Service and An Army of New Patriots]

In essence, Kerry proposes a new Declaration for America--life, liberty, and the duty to serve your community.

Yet in reality, there is no such duty to the community. Each individual is a sovereign, independent being. No person has an un-chosen duty to live his life for the sake of another. A high school diploma is a mark of having met basic educational standards, yet by forcing mandatory volunteerism into the curriculum, Kerry's proposal would turn it into the mark of servitude.

Will Kerry force his proposal upon private and home school students? Will students who refuse to be turned into serfs be compelled to serve nevertheless? And why is the language of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution ignored? If forcing every high school student to perform a mandatory service requirement is not involuntary servitude, what is?