Category: Politics

Indian Ayn Rand Fan Minal Panchal among Virginia Tech Victims

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

The article “World Reacts to Tech Shootings” in today’s Guardian mentions briefly that one of the Virginia Tech victims was a fan of Ayn Rand’s work:

Minal PanchalIndia – which lost a lecturer – added a second victim to its toll: Minal Panchal, a 26-year-old master’s student in building sciences, CNN-IBN news said Wednesday. She had been listed as missing before her body was found at Norris Hall.
“She was really passionate about architecture, about buildings and Ayn Rand was one of her favorite authors. She went to the U.S. to study building sciences,” said Chetna Parekh, a friend from Mumbai.

India eNews has a full article about Minal, titled “Minal’s dreams brought her to US varsity — and death” (which too notes her admiration for Ayn Rand’s work).
I can hardly imagine the depths of grief that Ms. Panchal’s family, together with all the families of victims at Virginia Tech, must be experiencing.
Tomorrow we’ll be publishing an excellent op-ed by Jacob Sullum which analyzes the relationship between the Virginia Tech shooting and the so-called “gun-free” policies that make it possible for a lone gunman to kill so many people on a college campus.
UPDATE: Sullum’s article is available here.

Lenders Are Damned If They Lend, and Damned If They Don't

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

ARI’s David Holcberg has penned a compelling letter to the editor submitted to hundreds of newspapers, radio stations, and web sites:

With 2 million homeowners defaulting on their mortgage payments, we are increasingly hearing denunciations of lenders for having loaned money to people who had no means of paying it back. But these denunciations reveal a disturbing double standard. For years, politicians pressured lenders to not discriminate against those with poor credit history and shaky finances. Now we have the despicable spectacle of politicians accusing lenders of not having discriminated enough and of having made too many risky loans.
Lenders are damned if they lend — and damned if they don’t. Whatever lenders do, politicians seem to always find their practices objectionable, and will take advantage of any excuse to call for more regulations and increased political power over lending. Politicians should leave lenders alone, and instead of damning them, they should acknowledge their crucial role in making home ownership possible for so many people.

Britain's Impotence over Hostage Sailors

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Did you know that the British sailors recently abducted by Iran were under the protection of an escorting ship from the British Royal Navy — but it was ordered to “stand down” rather than defend the sailors?
From historian Arthur Herman’s article on the subject in today’s New York Post:

The latest report is that the Britons were ready to fight off their abductors. Certainly their escorting ship, HMS Cornwall, could have blown the Iranian naval vessel out of the water. However, at the last minute the British Ministry of Defense ordered the Cornwall not to fire, and her captain and crew were forced to watch their shipmates led away into captivity.

Herman explains how this decision reflects a larger pattern of pacifism by the British, including recent (steep) cuts to the budget for the Royal Navy.
Soon, all Britain will have left, with which to defend its sailors, is Tony Blair’s withering consternation.

C'mon, Al. Step up to the plate!

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

British scientist Lord Monkton — a former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom — says:

A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.

“Foofaraw” … I love it.
Better still, he has challenged Mr. Gore to a formal debate to evaluate the scientific merits of his global warming hype.
And the venue? “[T]he elegant, Victorian-Gothic Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which was the setting for the ‘Great Debate’ between the natural scientist T. H. Huxley and Bishop ‘Soapy Sam’ Wilberforce on the theory of evolution, following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species.”
From Monkton’s formal invitation to Mr. Gore:

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question, ‘That our effect on climate is not dangerous,’ to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.
Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President’s prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet. God Bless America! God Save the Queen!

Al has science on his side, right? He has nothing to be afraid of, right?
This, I would pay money to see.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus Slams Global Warming

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Matt Drudge points out a very articulate (and high profile) new swipe at global warming from Czech President Vaclav Klaus, from an interview in a Czech publication:

Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?
A: It’s not my idea. Global warming is a myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it’s an undignified slapstick that people don’t wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the “but’s” are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.
This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.

President Klaus goes on at some length, and it’s quite good, so keep reading…
PS: For anyone new to the subject of why global warming is a farce, you can hardly do better than Michael Crichton’s excellent novel State of Fear. You might even call it “the Atlas Shrugged of global warming dissent” — and it comes complete with footnotes and an annotated bibliography for further reading.

Exxon Warming Up to Global Warming?

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

MSNBC reports that Exxon-Mobil has “stopped funding groups skeptical of global warming claims.”
Whether because of Congressional pressure, or that from stockholders nervous about bad publicity, the change can be expected to harbinger bad news for some. (Exxon actually stopped funding CEI, a major critic of global warming claims, prior to receiving the infamous Snowe-Rockefeller letter.)
Larger companies like Exxon may see little effect – they have highly paid lobbyists to soften any effect of expected increased legislative control. Smaller companies may simply disappear, unable to compete as the price of generating energy is increased.
Those who advocate a free market in energy, supported by sound environmental science, should be concerned.

Tracinski On Fox News – Rescheduled for Jan 8

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Robert Tracinksi, owner and publisher of TIA Daily, is scheduled to appear on “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” a Fox News Channel program on Jan 8, time to be determined.
In a recent TIA Daily he outlined the three current strategies for Iraq under discussion by the Administration: “Going Big, Going Long, and Going Home.” He presents an alternative he calls “Going Wide.” This involves essentially looking beyond Iraq’s borders to the wider source of the problem, namely Iran and Syria.

Nuremburg vs. Saddam's Sloppy Trial

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

From Ed Hudgins at The Objectivist Center:
Saddam Hussein’s Execution
by Edward Hudgins
Saddam Hussein is deservedly dead, hanged as the heinous criminal he was. But the process by which justice was administered was disappointing and highlights the wide gap in values between Iraqâ??s culture and that of any civilized country.
I wrote three years ago (“A Trial for Saddam Hussein,” December 17, 2003) that a trial of Hussein offered an opportunity for Iraqis to affirm universal principles of justice the way the Nuremberg trials did after World War II. Nazi war criminals faced charges of committing aggression, crimes committed during war and crimes against humanity. The judges were representatives of the victors, but this was not victors’ justice. True, the Soviet government, whose leaders deserved the same treatment as the Nazis, had a representative on the panel of judges that included members from the United States, Britain and France. But the process allowed the Nazis to defend themselves and several were even acquitted.
But most important, the crimes of the Nazi regime were documented for all to see. Principles of justice plus a detailed look at how they were undermined offered an object lesson to all countries seeking to keep the commitment of “never again.”
In Iraq, Saddam was convicted and executed for the 1982 murders of 148 people in the town of Dujail in the wake of an assassination attempt against him. He deserved his fate but that trial did not lay out the broader principles of justice that should govern any legitimate regime. Nor did it review the full scope of his regime’s crimes that led to the torture and deaths of hundreds of thousands.
Continue reading “Nuremburg vs. Saddam's Sloppy Trial”

Monckton Reply to Snowe & Rockefeller: Let Exxon Speak

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

U.S. Senators Snowe and Rockefeller recently wrote a letter to Exxon-Mobil’s CEO urging the company to cease funding ‘climate skeptics’.
The Center for Science and Public Policy recently posted a pdf with a reply by Lord Monckton of the UK.
Websites around the Internet are afire with discussions about the free speech implications, on top of an already heated debate about climate change. Is it just a publicity-seeking move by some politicians? Is it an ominous portend? Read and decide for yourself.

Pay with Paypal
Sub Total:
Total:

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Loading