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True
North Archives - November 24, 2009
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Featured
Articles
"Bankruptcy
is Coming" – Does Anyone Care?
By Robert Maynard
There has been no shortage
of modern day Paul Reveres shouting "Bankruptcy is Coming". Alas, the warning
seems to be falling on death ears. I was at a meeting of fiscally concerned
citizens a little over a week ago and was questioned about why a certain
section of the political class seems totally oblivious to the fiscal cliff
that we are rushing toward at an ever-increasing speed. My response was
that they are not oblivious at all, but see the fiscal crisis as an opportunity
to push forward their social engineering schemes.
Spider
Seeks Fly for Companionship, Dinner
By Martin Harris
 Watching
the present Administration doing its thing "The Chicago Way" for the last
307 days (out of a probable total of 1461) suggested at first that I should
describe, in this column, the consiglieri of Chicago-trained pol
Rahm Emanuel going to the management of the rapidly-bankrupting New York
Times with "a (monetary) offer they can’t refuse", Don Corleone-style,
but such a description would be inaccurate because, I’d guess, the Grey
Lady, as an historic professional, wouldn’t even think of declining any
payment-for-position-taken-and-service-rendered proposition. She didn’t,
when Times reporter Walter Duranty wrote repeatedly in the early ‘30’s
from Soviet Russia that the starvation of Ukrainian millions there wasn’t
happening (and got a Pulitzer for his pro-Communist dispatches) and she
didn’t in the early ‘60’s when she chose not to report on thousands of
dead Chicagoans rising temporarily from their graves to vote for candidate
Kennedy and she didn’t in the early ‘90’s when reporting in fulsome detail
on later-proven-false accounts of the Ross Perot presidential candidacy,
using techniques later refined in CBS/Dan Rather-style reporting on the
Bush and (even more so) Palin candidacies.
Thank
You!
 By
Rob Roper
With Brian Dubie now topping
our ticket, Auditor Salmon running for reelection, and open seats with
strong Republican candidates for Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor,
we have a very real chance of capturing a majority of statewide offices.
Our chances of picking up house and senate seats are equally promising.
I am confident that we will take full advantage of these opportunities.
The fact that we just experienced the most successful Fall Dinner in memory
- if not ever - reinforces my optimism.
# # #
Quotable
"You cannot legislate
the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
What one person receives without working for, another person must work
for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that
the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the
people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half
is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that
it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they
work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation.
You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
--Adrian Pierce
Rogers (September 12, 1931 – November 15, 2005), was an American pastor,
conservative, author, and a three-term president of the Southern Baptist
Convention (1979-1980 and 1986-1988).
* * *
Vermont
Weekly News Round-Up
To
Each According To His Need
From Vermont Tiger, November
17, 2009
The Burlington Politburo,
er, Council, finds time to explore such economically advantageous ideas
like providing laptops
to all Burlingtonians, because, you know, our children are
at risk. Small children needs laptops like I need antlers on my head
during deer season. Yet the actions of the mayor result in remarks
offensive to veterans, on Veterans Day, and the best the council can do
is force itself to take a vote on whether or not an apology should be forthcoming.
Immigration
Agents Raid Vt. Dairy Farms
From WCAX, November 19,
2009
The day started just like
any other for life-time dairy farmer Clement Gervais. But that all changed
at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, when an immigration official and two state troopers
walked into his barn and handed him a subpoena.
"I've read about it in magazines
in different parts of the country but I didn't really expect them to pull
into my yard," Gervais said.
The Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Agency-- otherwise known as ICE-- is now asking him to hand
over documents and financial records proving all his workers are here legally.
Why
Not Just Make More?
From Vermont Tiger, November
18, 2009
We all know that living on
a limited budget means making difficult choices. It means, when the fridge
is empty you buy more food... or you eat less. It means when your car is
on empty you buy more gas... or you drive less. And, when the house
is cold you turn up the heat... or you put on more clothes. Economic history
teaches us that most people choose to turn up the heat, fill up the tank,
and go for a drive to get more food. So why is it that we, Vermonters collectively,
are spending so much money trying to use less energy instead of just making
more?
Veterans
Day Insult Sealed With A Kiss
Caledonia Record Editorial,
November 19, 2009
Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss
should hang his head in shame. He sent a substitute, Jon Hausrath, to speak
at Veterans Day ceremonies without knowing that the man would praise conscientious
objectors and draft dodgers instead of thanking and praising veterans who
put their country above their personal, private lives. Alderman Paul Decelles
summed up his and our reaction. "This was a day of remembrance," he said,
"And Hausrath's comments amounted to spitting on the graves of those who
have fallen," not to mention spitting in the faces of all those veterans
who are still with us.
Vermont
Jobless Rate Falls
By Dan McLean, Burlington
Free Press, November 21, 2009
The bulk of the government
positions, 1,500 jobs, were created in the "local government education"
sector. Those jobs include support staff positions at local public schools
and [the total] is slightly larger than the boost seen in this sector annually
as schools return to session, said Andy Condon, chief of the economic and
labor market section at the labor department.
Private sector job growth
has fallen by 10,700 positions from October 2008 to last month, a 4.2 percent
decline. The declines have come as the country has been mired in a deep
recession since December 2007.
"Our rate is not falling
because we are creating jobs. We're not," Condon said in a phone
interview Friday. "The rate is falling because people are leaving the labor
force."
The
Season of Plenty? 'Healthiest state' also is one of the hungriest'
By Kevin
O'Connor, Rutland Herald, November 22, 2009
The number of Vermonters
suffering from severe hunger has risen so high so fast, the state now has
the sixth worst percentage of residents facing the problem in the nation.
Vermont made national news
last week when the nonprofit United Health Foundation named the state the
healthiest state in the country, based in part on its comparatively low
rates of obesity and child poverty.
But a just-released U.S.
Department of Agriculture report says more than 14,000 Vermont households
(one in 20, or triple the number since 2000) face hunger so severe that
adults frequently go without food, while one in 10 residents now relies
on donations to eat.
# # #
Freedom
Under Fire:
The
Global War on Terrorism
Hasan,
Not KSM, Is Our Real Problem
Violent Islamic Web
sites pose a clear and present danger to the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal,
November
11, 2009
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is
an old-school jihadi. They sit in far-off redoubts, assembling terror teams
of foreign nationals who now must figure out how to get themselves and
their plot inside the U.S. Not impossible, but harder than before 9/11.
Hasan is new school. He is
what's known as a homegrown terrorist. Virtually all the Islamic terrorist
plots thwarted here in recent years were homegrown, not designed from afar
by a KSM.
Leave
It to the Generals
Judges should not
undermine our military detention policy in Afghanistan.
By Stephanie Hessler, National
Review,
November 18, 2009
As the debate over whether
to send more American troops to Afghanistan intensifies, our war efforts
could be hindered by an unlikely source: the U.S. judicial branch. Federal
judges are considering whether foreign al-Qaeda and Taliban supporters
captured by the U.S. military and held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan
can sue the U.S. government to be released from custody. On October 30,
Fadi al Maqaleh, a Yemeni citizen currently detained in Afghanistan, argued
in a brief to the D.C. circuit court that he has the right under our Constitution
to challenge his confinement in U.S. federal court. Despite his campaign
promises to abandon the detention
policies of his predecessor, President Obama has adopted the
same position as President Bush and is trying to block al Maqaleh’s law
suit from proceeding. On Monday, the Obama administration filed a brief
urging the D.C. circuit court to dismiss the case.
The
Coming Jihadi Trial Disaster
By J.R. Dunn, American Thinker,
November
11, 2009
Forget the media chin-stroking
and head-scratching. The intentions behind the administration's decision
to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his sideboys in Manhattan could not be
clearer. Simply put, Obama wishes to Mirandize the entire murderous crew.
...
By redefining Islamist terrorists
as "criminals," liberals have automatically retrofitted them with "victim"
status, endowing them with all the rights and privileges granted to American
street hoodlums. If the record is any indication, this is going to end
far worse than anyone can foresee.
Perspective
Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 3)
By Svetlana Kunin, Investor’s
Business Daily, November 17, 2009
Whenever I speak about my
experiences living in the USSR, my American friends respond that such things
can never happen in a democracy like the United States.
They don't understand why
I am repulsed when I hear the president talk about "sacrificing for the
collective good," which sounds so compassionate, as opposed to greedy capitalism.
"Sacrifice for the collective good" is one of the founding principles of
socialism, where the collective, not the individual, is the basis of society.
Revolutionaries in Russia
did not go around boasting about destruction; they made inspiring speeches
about fairness, equality, justice and the greater good. After securing
power and their own access to material goods, government officials decided
what to give and take from the masses, according to their definition of
what is good.
Nidal
Hasan and Fort Hood: A Study in Muslim Doctrine
By Raymond Ibrahim, Pajamas
Media, November 18, 2009
One of the difficulties in
discussing Islam's more troubling doctrines is that they have an anachronistic,
even otherworldly, feel to them; that is, unless actively and openly upheld
by Muslims, non-Muslims, particularly of the Western variety, tend to see
them as abstract theory, not standard practice for today. In fact, some
Westerners have difficulties acknowledging even those problematic doctrines
that are openly upheld by Muslims — such as jihad. How much more
when the doctrines in question are subtle, or stealthy, in nature?
Enter Nidal Malik Hasan,
the psychiatrist, U.S. Army major, and "observant
Muslim who prayed daily," who recently went on a shooting
rampage at Fort Hood, killing thirteen Americans (including a pregnant
woman). While the media wonders in exasperation why he did it, offering
the same old tired and trite reasons — he was "picked
on," he was "mentally
unbalanced" — the fact is his behavior comports well with
certain Islamic doctrines. As such, it behooves Americans to take a moment
and familiarize themselves with the esotericisms of Islam.
Are
We Serious About Afghanistan?
By Gregory D. Lee, Family
Security Matters, November 23, 2009
After three months of contemplating
his options, President
Obama stated a couple of days ago that he will probably make
a decision about increasing requested troop
strength in Afghanistan after Thanksgiving. The White House is already
hinting that the U.S. cannot afford to send any more troops, and has released
figures of it costing, on an annual basis, $1 million for every soldier
sent there.
Fight like you mean it, or
leave.
Related: No
Substitute for Victory: Don't abandon Afghanistan.
# # #
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From
Elsewhere
The
Financial Crisis: What We (Still) Haven’t Learned
By Samuel Gregg D.Phil.,
Acton Institute for Religion and Liberty, November 18, 2009
It’s over a year now since
the 2008 financial crisis spread havoc throughout the global economy. Dozens
of books and articles have appeared to explain what went wrong. They identify
culprits ranging from Wall Street financiers overleveraging assets, to
ACORN lobbying policy-makers to lower mortgage standards, to politicians
closely connected to government-sponsored enterprises such as Freddie Mac
and Fannie Mae failing to exercise oversight of those agencies.
As time passes, armies of
doctoral students will explore every nook and cranny of the 2008 meltdown.
But if most governments’ policy responses to the crisis are any guide,
it’s apparent that many lessons from the financial crisis are being ignored
or escaping most policy-makers’ attention. Here are five of them.
Climategate:
the final nail in the coffin of 'Anthropogenic Global Warming'?
By James
Delingpole, Telegraph (UK), November 20, 2009
If you own any shares in
alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy
behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig)
has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a
hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate
Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of
confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts
Up With That)
When you read some of those
files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the
boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As
Andrew
Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be "the greatest in modern
science". These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most
prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:
Conspiracy, collusion
in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing
information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data,
private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.
Related: Settled
Science? Computer hackers reveal corruption behind the global-warming
"consensus."
The
End of HSAs
Harry Reid wants to
kill consumer-driven health care.
From The Wall Street Journal,
November 10, 2009
About the best that can be
said about the Senate health-care bill that Harry Reid revealed this week
is that it's marginally less destructive than the House monster. By a hair.
Its $1.2 trillion cost (more like $2.5 trillion if you discount the accounting
gimmicks), multiple and damaging new taxes, and new regulations will make
health insurance more expensive for most Americans while reducing the quality
of medical care.
We'll dissect the damage
in the days to come. But for today let's focus on the damage the bill would
do to consumer-driven health plans—the kind that give individuals more
control over their health dollars and insurance choices. The 2,074-page
bill crushes them with malice-aforethought.
Related: Health
Care Payola: Harry Reid is passing out goodies in hopes of garnering
the 60 votes he needs.
Oil's
Expanding Frontiers
By George Will, Petroleum
World, November 23 2009
Morse says new technologies
are also speeding development of natural gas trapped in U.S. shale rock.
The Marcellus Shale, which stretches from West Virginia through Pennsylvania
and into New York, "may contain as much natural gas as the North Field
in Qatar, the largest field ever discovered."
Rattie says U.S. known reserves
of natural gas, which are sure to become larger, exceed 100 years of supply
at the current rate of consumption. BP recently announced a "giant" oil
discovery beneath the Gulf of Mexico. Yergin, writing in Foreign Policy,
says "careful examination of the world's resource base ... indicates that
the resource endowment of the planet is sufficient to keep up with demand
for decades to come."
Such good news horrifies
people who relish scarcity because it requires -- or so they say -- government
to ration what is scarce and to generally boss people to mend their behavior:
"This is the police!" Put down that incandescent bulb and step away from
the lamp!"
New
McLaughlin Poll: In Va and NJ "conservative problem solvers" energized
GOP/Indie turnout
By Kevin "Coach" Collins,
November 17, 2009
The news from a new survey
of voter attitudes toward conservative Republican positions is very encouraging.
Immediately after Republican
victories in Virginia and New Jersey the McLaughlin polling firm spoke
to the voters of each state.
Survey’s important points:
The wins by Bob McDonnell
in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey show voters want Republican
core principles applied to our problems.
Reid
Introduces Senate Health Bill That Mandates Federally Subsidized Abortion
By Terence P. Jeffrey, CNS
News, November 19, 2009
Senate Majority Harry Reid
(D.-Nev.) late Wednesday published the final text of a Senate health care
bill that would mandate federally subsidized abortion.
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