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BLUE PLANET IN GREEN SHACKLES |
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Written by Vaclav Klaus
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Thursday, 29 May 2008 |
[Vaclav Klaus is President of
the Czech Republic]
It is a great pleasure to
announce the English translation of my book Blue
Planet in Green Shackles, published by the Competitive Enterprise
Institute.
Authors often claim their books
speak for themselves. I cautiously agree and will, therefore, speak not about
the book itself but about my motivations to write it.
My thinking today is
substantially influenced by the fact that I spent most of my life under a
Communist regime which ignored and brutally violated human freedom, which
wanted to command not only people but also nature itself.
To "command wind and rain" is
one of the famous slogans I remember since my childhood. This experience taught
me that freedom and rational dealing with the environment are indivisible. It
formed my views on the fragility and vulnerability of free society and gave me
a special sensitivity to all kinds of factors which may endanger it.
I do not, however, live in the
past and do not see the future threats to free society coming from the old and
old-fashioned communist ideology. The name of the new danger will undoubtedly
be different, but its substance will be very similar.
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HALF-FULL REPORT 053008 |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Friday, 30 May 2008 |
Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the HFR was trying
to shake a couple of drops out of its far-from-even-half-full glass? Well, fill up the flagon, barkeep, we're
going to hoist a few this week.
We have a selection of heroes to toast. Let's start with a tankard of Pilsner
Urquell for the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus...
We follow that with a chalice of Brennan 2006
Viognier with its bouquet of bluebonnets and West Texas crude to that good
ol' boy from Wichita Falls, Rex Tillerson, chairman of Exxon-Mobil...
Finally, a tumbler of Glen Morangie
single-malt (no defiling it with ice or water - the Scots consider that a
"mixed drink") to a spy coming in from the cold, CIA Director Michael Hayden...
That's the last of the good stuff for now. The HFR pours instead a cup of contempt for
bimbo-airhead actress Sharon Stone...
Here's the fun episode of the week. The HFR guzzles a goblet of glee over
Obambi's latest embarrassment, Father Michael Pfleger...
Let's close with a potpourri of good news, because if drank
to each one we'd get seriously wasted...
One last item.
Your humble HFR author takes personal satisfaction in the new movie, Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
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THE GIFT OF OBAMA – TO REPUBLICANS |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Wednesday, 28 May 2008 |
Rupert Murdoch is one of the world's savviest businessmen -
but his prediction
today (5/29) that Obambi will defeat McCain next November in a landslide
is straightforward idiocy.
Someone could make an intelligible argument that he could
come out on top in a close contest - but a landslide? That's nuts. For the odds
are far, far greater that it will be the other way around. McCain is going to wipe the electoral floor
with Obambi.
Obambi is going to be torched by white women, Reagan
Democrats, Hillary supporters, and most everybody else except blacks,
academics, college kids being taught by the academics, and urban-elitist
liberals whose brains have been similarly damaged by the academics. He'll carry Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Vermont, and maybe New York - maybe.
Not a lot more. Not even
California.
Murdoch would have been on much firmer ground predicting a
Dem landslide in the House and Senate - but that wouldn't be news, for that's
the universally accepted wisdom.
Predictions are ubiquitous that the Pubs are going to lose 10 to 20 House
seats and 4 to 6 Senate seats at a minimum.
It could be much worse, a lot worse.
So much worse that the Dems will gain a filibuster-proof
majority of 60+ seats in the Senate, preventing the passage of any decent
McCain legislation or the confirmation of any decent McCain judicial appointment.
How ironic, then, that the hero who can save the day and
rescue the helpless Pubbies from certain disaster is... the Dems' very own
champion, Hussein Obambi.
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THE AMAZING GAFFE-MAN: STUPID, IGNORANT, OR INSANE? |
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Written by Jack Kelly
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Thursday, 29 May 2008 |
"We have not exhausted our non-military options in
confronting the Iranian threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them,"
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama says on his Web site. "If Iran abandons its
nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like
membership in the World Trade Organization."
It was Albert Einstein who first defined insanity as "doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different results."
"Perhaps Mr. Obama is unaware that one of (Iranian President Mahmoud)
Ahmadinejad's first acts was to freeze Tehran's efforts for securing WTO
membership because he regards the outfit as 'a nest of conspiracies by Zionists
and Americans'," wrote Amir Taheri in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday
(5/28).
Sen. Obama can escape Einstein's charge of insanity by pleading ignorance. He
didn't know about U.S. overtures to Iran, or Mr. Ahmadinejad's rejection of
them. But shouldn't a candidate for president know these things?
It's gotten so absurd that, after Sen. Obama took opposite sides on successive days last week on whether
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez should be engaged or isolated, ABC's Jake
Tapper described him as "a one-man gaffe machine." And that was
before The Amazing Gaffe-Man's Memorial Day twofer.
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CLASSICAL FASCIST CHINA |
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Written by Michael Ledeen
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Friday, 30 May 2008 |
Even though they still call
themselves communists, and the Communist Party rules the country, classical
fascism should be the starting point for our efforts to understand the People's
Republic.
We are certainly not dealing
with a Communist regime, either politically or economically. Chinese leaders are keeping a firm grip on
political power while permitting relatively free areas of economic enterprise.
Their political methods are quite like those used by the European fascists 80
years ago.
The short history of classical
fascism suggests that it is only a matter of time before China will pursue
confrontation with the West. That is built into the DNA of all such regimes.
Sooner or later, Chinese leaders will feel compelled to demonstrate the
superiority of their system, and even the most impressive per capita GDP will
not do.
It follows that the West must
prepare for war with China, hoping thereby to deter it. A great Roman once said
that if you want peace, prepare for war:
Si vis pacem, para bellum. This is sound advice with regard to a
fascist Chinese state that wants to play a global role.
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WHY THE LEFT HATES THE GOOD NEWS IN IRAQ |
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Written by Ralph Peters
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Thursday, 29 May 2008 |
Whenever retreat-now activists
or their favored presidential aspirant are confronted with our progress in
Iraq, their stock reply is, "Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq in 2003."
Well, I happen to agree with
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama and his supporters on that count: At most, the
terrorists had a tenuous connection with Saddam's regime. But it's 2008, not
2003. And our next president will take office in 2009. It's today's
reality that matters.
And today's reality is that Al
Qaeda is nearing final collapse, Iran has failed in its bid to take over Iraq,
and the democratically elected government is gaining in popularity.
What don't the critics like?
Democracy? The defeat of Al Qaeda? Moslems turning to the US military for help?
Troop cuts? The dramatically improved human-rights situation? What's the
problem here?
The
answer's simple:
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EMPATHY |
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Written by Dr. Joel Wade
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Friday, 30 May 2008 |
The Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do
unto you." This is a prescription that
asks you to have empathy for other
people.
Empathy is not sympathy, where you share the same feelings
as someone else. Empathy is being able to imagine what they might have been
going through.
In fact, if you have an enemy, someone who wishes to do you
harm, it can be a great strength for you to understand them, to have a degree
of empathy for them - so that you can better know how to stop them.
We can look at this in terms of our political adversaries:
It's easy to look at the left and to just dismiss them as clueless idiots, or
evil zealots, or foolish idealists. But that doesn't help us to defeat them.
It's much better to look at them as people - sometimes very
smart people - who have come to their beliefs somehow or other, and who believe
them strongly and passionately, as do we. The better we can understand these
people, and the beliefs they are motivated by, the more effectively we can
argue our beliefs, form effective strategies, and counter theirs.
The left shows us a great weakness by constantly showing
their lack of empathy for conservatives. The more shrill the voices, the less
likely it is that they have any idea who it is they are dealing with. This can
be annoying at times, but strategically it is very useful.
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BUREAUCRATIC WISDOM |
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Written by To The Point News
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Friday, 30 May 2008 |
Tribal wisdom, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount."
However, in government and corporate bureaucracies, more
advanced strategies are often employed, such as:
1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how
other cultures ride horses.
5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be
included.
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as
living-impaired.
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IS OBAMA ON DRUGS? |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Thursday, 22 May 2008 |
The number of extraordinary gaffes committed by Obambi has
been proliferating of late. Among those
just this month are not knowing Afghans don't speak Arabic and that his own
state of Illinois doesn't border Kentucky.
Most incredible of all is his telling an audience, "I have now been to
57 states with one left to go," then says that one is "Alaska and Hawaii."
No matter how
exhausted from campaigning you are, you don't make a mistake like that under
any normal circumstances. Saying there
are 57 states - actually 58, or is it 59? - is such an egregiously stupid error
that it is evidence of brain malfunction.
A neuroscientist
with years of research into drug abuse and brain chemistry tells To The
Point that the behavior exhibited by Obama is consistent with the use of
either amphetamines or cocaine.
In his book, Dreams
From My Father, Obambi admitted his drug use when young: "Pot (marijuana) had helped, and
booze; maybe a little blow (cocaine) when you could afford it. Not smack
(heroin), though."
Teen-age drug use isn't, of course, evidence for its use in
one's 40s. But when someone who may be
elected President of the United States starts behaving suspiciously, then it's
justified to ask that those suspicions be allayed.
Thus, To The Point calls for Barack Hussein Obama to
be drug tested.
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HALF-FULL REPORT 052308 |
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Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
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Friday, 23 May 2008 |
The HFR's goblet is raised this week in sympathy to this
young lady and not to her murderer. She
is Mary Jo Kopechne. Her death at the hands of a drunk Ted
Kennedy served one purpose for which America must be forever grateful: it prevented his ever being elected
President of the United States.
The HFR goblet contains no mawkish, treacly, fawning
oleaginous encomiums to a man who has done more objective damage to his country
than any American alive today. Millions
more would be alive today if it were not for his truly fanatical crusade in the
Senate to allow mothers to murder their unborn babies for any reason
whatsoever.
Those millions have been replaced by countless hordes of
illegal aliens thanks to his immigration bills of 1965 and 1986. No one - no one - has done more to destroy
American culture on purpose by being the key advocate of every
culturally destructive left-wing lunacy
for the last 40 years.
On purpose because there is clear evidence he was a traitor,
offering
to work with Soviet leaders such as Yuri Andropov to thwart Ronald Reagan's
efforts to win the Cold War.
The HFR does not gloat upon the pain and suffering of any
fellow human being. His type of brain
cancer is fatal and cannot be cured. It
affects the area of the brain that controls speech, writing, and reading. The HFR hopes that his suffering will be
minimal and his passing peaceful - but nonetheless raises a full glass of
gratitude that he will soon no longer be in the Senate and in a position to do
further damage to America.
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CROSSING OVER IN NOVEMBER |
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Written by Jack Kelly
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Friday, 23 May 2008 |
Imagine the election this fall as a gigantic Democratic
primary in which independents and Republicans can cross over. I suspect
this is how John McCain is looking at it.
Sen. McCain is running for president de facto as an independent.
This gives conservatives heartburn, but considering the parlous state of the
Republican brand these days, it's probably wise.
The more swing voters view Sen. McCain as independent, the more likely they are
to choose between him and Sen. Obama on the basis of the major differences
between them on issues, or on their characters, or on their experience,
all of which work to Sen. McCain's advantage.
And by stressing his independence, Sen. McCain undermines one of Sen.
Obama's campaign themes. Sen. Obama has presented himself as a
reformer who would reach across party lines. But he's never actually done
it. Sen. McCain has. In a "where's the beef?" contest,
Sen. Obama is tofu.
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INDIVIDUALISM AND ACCEPTANCE |
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Written by Dr. Joel Wade
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Friday, 23 May 2008 |
[TTP'ers: This is
a masterpiece. I could not encourage
you to read it more. I have made it
free access so you may encourage your friends - especially those who are
liberal - to do so as well. ---Jack Wheeler]
One of the things that I noticed over the years working as a
psychotherapist, is how so many of my colleagues who were so compassionate and
caring on certain levels, could be so rigid and judgmental when it came to
differing political ideas.
Most of my colleagues have been politically to the left to
one degree or another, and I often found it odd and irritating how harshly
critical they could be of conservatives, while holding a stance of
unconditional acceptance toward their clients in general.
I have not found the same dynamic to the same degree with
people on the right. Sure people have strong opinions, and sometimes the
discussions or arguments can get heated, and I have certainly seen examples of
rude and spiteful behavior from a few conservatives here and there, but this is
not usually conservative style.
From the right, in general, there is usually a more
respectful tone than from the left. How
come?
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GLOBAL WARMING AS AN INTELLIGENCE FAILURE |
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Written by Richard Rahn
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Thursday, 22 May 2008 |
What
do you think was the most costly intelligence failure of all time? No, was is not the world's leading
intelligence agencies' failure to notice that Saddam had few, if any, weapons
of mass destruction.
It was
the failure of many leading climate model builders to be modest enough about
their predictions, and the politicians' and media's failure to ask the tough
questions of these climate experts.
As a consequence of what we now know was an
overblown global-warming scare, everyone on the planet is paying substantially
more for food and fuel than is necessary. And Democrats in Congress are doing everything they can to keep it that way.
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OUR HATEAMERICA MEDIA HATES OUR WINNING IN IRAQ |
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Written by Ralph Peters
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Friday, 23 May 2008 |
Do we still have troops in Iraq?
Is there still a conflict over there?
If you rely on the so-called
mainstream media, you may have difficulty answering those questions these days.
As Iraqi and Coalition forces pile up one success after another, Iraq has
magically vanished from the headlines.
Want a real
"inconvenient truth?" Progress in Iraq is powerful and accelerating.
But that fact isn't helpful to
elite media commissars and cadres determined to decide the presidential race
over our heads. How dare our troops win? Even worse, Iraqi troops
are winning. Daily.
You won't see that above the
fold in The New York Times. And forget the Obama-intoxicated news networks -
they've adopted his story line that the clock stopped back in 2003.
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DOING BUSINESS WITH GERMANS |
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Written by Mercury Traveler
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Friday, 23 May 2008 |
Forty years ago I found out what it's like to do business with
Germans. The lessons learned, I've
discovered since, can apply to dealing with businessfolk in general who don't
play fair.
During my stay as a director in a Belgian steel mill I was in direct
competition with the biggest steel mills of Germany. I was the first to export
our special steels to Germany, something like selling sand to the Arabs.
When I started travelling to Germany I found a closed market from the heavy
steel industry down to the smallest distributor. They had one price list
and the biggest buyers, the German coal mines, still had to buy rigidly from
the local distributor. The mines bought thousands and thousands of tons per
week and the local distributor got rich while asleep. It was an ironclad
market, completely locked up. When I visited the distributors they laughed me
out of town.
So I went to the German coal mines and the German ship yards with
impossibly low prices. What I expected happened, those consumers called their
distributors, who called the big steel mills. Within a couple of weeks I was
called out of the blue by a "Herr General Direktor Wolff" who from
very high in his steel blue sky ordered me to cease my foolish interference in
the German market or else!
I told him politely that I was going into the
German steel market no matter what...
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