Faustam fortuna adiuvat
The official blog of Fausta's Blog Talk Radio show.
posted by Fausta @ 9:45 AM
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Guillermo Fariñas, a psychologist and director of the independent Cubanacan Press agency, is in serious but stable condition after on Wednesday ending a 56-day hunger strike he began to demand free access to the Internet.Another independent journalist, Juan Carlos Herrera, has also been transferred to a hospital after going on hunger strike protesting his prison conditions. Last year I posted a graphic description of the dissidents' jail conditions. Certainly, moving out of a dungeon into a health care facility is an improvement, even if the health care facility is very poor.
The dissident "has had no complications, but he is very weak, with headaches and polyneuropathies in his legs and hands," his mother Alicia Hernandez said.
Fariñas, 43, is receiving medical care – including intravenous nourishment and fluids – in a hospital in Santa Clara, some 280 kilometers (about 175 miles) east of Havana.
Dr. Ferrer had sinned against the Revolution: He is an Afro-Cuban medical professional who, noting the country's abyssmal state of health care, established an independent health and human rights clinic. "We have dedicated ourselves to offering free medical attention to those in need and visiting extremely poor communities where scarcities strike marginalized Cubans daily, to offer health services, give medicine, clothing and toys, and to share the suffering of those beings", Dr. Ferrer reported.Of course, that landed Dr. Ferrer in the clink.
French jurist Christine Chanet, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's "expert" on Cuba, acknowledged the wave of repression this month. Though Cuban officials have refused her access, she noted that her sources report that "in 2005 more people were arrested and given dispropportionate sentences for expressing dissident political opinions". Since she is French and a UNHRC bureaucrat, however, Ms. Chanet blamed the brutality on the U.S. By supporting Cuban democrats, she explained, the U.S. "provide[s] the Cuban authorities with an opportunity to tighten repression against them".In Fidel's paradise,
Dr. Ferrer's race also works against him. Independent thinking is heresy for any Cuban but Afro-Cubans are taught to be especially grateful for - and obedient to - the Revolution. They are supposed signal to the world that thought they may appear poor, malnourished and opressed, they are actually living contentedly on Master Fidel's plantation. Dr. Ferrer hasn't been playing the game.Neither has Guillermo Fariñas.
Brenner helped arrange a four-month visit to Cuba by nine American University students who say they are at times puzzled by the contradictions between Cuban government rhetoric about the benefits of a socialist society and Cubans' lack of material wealth.I realize Jessica Skinner, of Grand Junction, Colorado, isn't the brightest bulb in the Christmas tree, but the reality is:
"I've traveled a lot and for me it has been very frustrating," said 21-year-old Jessica Skinner, of Grand Junction, Colorado. "I came here being very anti-embargo and now that I'm here, I'm confused."
posted by Fausta @ 9:06 AM
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After spending your whole life as the world's best-known pornographer, what are you worried about? Your legacy!
posted by Fausta @ 8:21 AM
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A question from S,C&A, Is Castro dead?
posted by Fausta @ 11:26 AM
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Sigmund, Carl and Alfred's conversation with a moderate Muslim is today's must-read:
Iqbal, a student of Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, and the father of Pakistan who was hugely influenced by Nietzsche, said that the solution to the Muslim troubles wasn't further self-negation, but self-affirmation. That's where I get the name for my blog. I am unwilling to negate my self. Because I believe in my self. My belief in my self makes me love life. As such, it makes me the enemy of those who deny life. I am one of the very few who openly declare their love of living. Most believe that such declarations are impossible. That is why I wear hope as a badge. I have to have pride in it so others will have the courage to wear the same badge. I want to be the hope that takes us beyond the need for hope.Ali, whose entire interview you must read, also blogs at Infidel Bloggers Alliance
The hundreds of thousands of protesters who took to the streets in favor illegal immigration seem to "know" America better than most Americans. Here's some of what they know:Patriots, Then and Now: With nations as with people, love them or lose them
* The rule of law is irrelevant whenever enforcement becomes impractical, burdensome or politically inconvenient. The thousands of marchers, many illegals, had no fear whatsoever of being arrested or detained.
* The English language is "flexible." Thus "illegal alien" becomes "undocumented worker" - as if the two were actually interchangeable.
* We're the world's leading practitioner of moral relativism - free to say that anyone who opposes massive law-breaking or defends the integrity of American culture is "racist" or "xenophobic."
* The will of the American people is of no consequence. Poll after poll shows a substantial majority opposed to amnesty, guest-worker programs, open borders, drivers' licenses for illegals, etc. - but our politicians care more about courting Hispanic votes. Though Congress has passed seven separate amnesties for illegal aliens since 1986, the Senate's getting ready to pass another.
We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. "So I'm like 'no," and he's all 'yeah,' and I'm like, 'In your dreams.' " Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch.I was saying as much last year
So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good.
But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.
What it comes down to is that the children are superfically acculturated to the media images and the language, but not to the values, of the culture. Call it a pop-culture acculturationHere's a link to the National Republican Senatorial Committee National Survey on Immigration Policy, and give your opinion.
Conservatives should favor a policy of encouraging unlimited immigration by educated people with math, engineering, technology or science skills that America's education system is not sufficiently supplying.More articles from Maria:
And conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France. The House-passed bill, making it a felony to be in the country illegally, would make 11 million people permanently ineligible for legal status. To what end?
posted by Fausta @ 7:31 AM
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BBCA News broadcast has just announced that American hostage Jill Carroll has been released. Ms Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter, was kidnapped on January 7.
Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said was handed over to the Iraqi Islamic Party office in Amiriya, western Baghdad, by an unknown group. She was later turned over to the Americans and was believed to be in the heavily fortified Green Zone, he said.BBC
Sunni Arab politician Tariq al-Hashimi told reporters Ms Carroll was released earlier on Thursday and was with him. Details are still coming in.
Ms Carroll's release comes a week after the freeing of three other western hostages, a Briton and two Canadians.
An Iraqi government source quoted by Reuters news agency said that Ms Carroll was in good health and being cared for in Baghdad's heavily guarded government compound, the Green Zone.
. . .
Ms Carroll is the fourth Western hostage being held in Iraq to be freed in eight days.
Update 8:30AM NYT A spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a predominantly Sunni group, said Ms. Carroll was handed over to party officials at a site in western Baghdad. They then turned her over to American authorities, who whisked her to the heavily fortified Green Zone, according to an official in the Interior Ministry.(technorati tag Jill Carroll)
A leader of the party, Dr. Tariq Al-hashmi said that he had participated in winning the release of Ms. Carroll, according to an official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
posted by Fausta @ 6:21 AM
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Via Daily Ablution commenter Dan Collins, Highly Over-Hyped: Greenland's and Antarctica's Impacts on Sea Level
Considering that four of the stations that warmed are associated with the Antarctic Peninsula, however, there is little that can be said about the temperature trend of the entire continent, which issue they skillfully skirt. However, they do report "there has been a broad-scale change in the nature of the temperature trends between 1961-90 and 1971-2000." Specifically, they report that of the ten coastal stations that have long enough records to allow 30-year temperature trends to be computed for both of these periods, "eight had a larger warming trend (or a smaller cooling trend) in the earlier [our italics] period." In fact, four of them changed from warming to cooling, as did the interior Vostok site; and at the South Pole the rate of cooling intensified by a factor of six.Just the facts, Ma'm.
These observations reveal that over the latter part of the 20th century, i.e., the period of time that according to climate alarmists experienced the most dramatic global warming of the entire past two millennia, fully 80% of the Antarctic coastal stations with sufficiently long temperature records experienced either an intensification of cooling or a reduced rate of warming; while four coastal sites and one interior site actually shifted from warming to cooling.
posted by Fausta @ 9:34 AM
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This morning's Town Topics has a nice review of McCarter Theater's current production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We saw it last weekend, and it was fun.
It seemed you could tell any crazy lie to smear the US, and you'd be praised as a truth-teller. And so our own SBS ran a French documentary, The World According to Bush, arguing that Bush attacked Iraq just "for the benefit of Israel", because he was a "political whore" who was a puppet of Jews and Christian Zionists. Goebbels couldn't have put it better.Blame Carter, not Bush
Carter brought about the instability by refusing to back his threatened show of force with action when Americans were taken hostage in Iran in 1979. By failing to take action, Carter failed the Middle East and more importantly he failed to faithfully fulfill his duties as president of the United States. Carter's betrayal of the late shah of Iran not only left a power vacuum that was filled by the Ayatollah Khomeini, but his betrayal and failure allowed for the rise of radical Islam, which culminated in Sept. 11, 2001.Never forget: The Falling Man
THEY BEGAN JUMPING NOT LONG after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died. They jumped continually, from all four sides of the building, and from all floors above and around the building's fatal wound. They jumped from the offices of Marsh & McLennan, the insurance company; from the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading company; from Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors—the top. For more than an hour and a half, they streamed from the building, one after another, consecutively rather than en masse, as if each individual required the sight of another individual jumping before mustering the courage to jump himself or herself.Feeling the Pain of the Falling Man of 9/11. Just this week, Bone fragments found near World Trade Center site
posted by Fausta @ 7:23 AM
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Yesterday Shrinkwrapped looked at Neo-neocon's assertion that profound cultural change is ordinarily not a fast process, and posted that "Ultimately, immigration is About the children":
Here we begin to see how the pernicious ideology of multi-culturism and political correctness has been slowly disarming our population of their intellectual weapons. Neo mentions the "melting pot"; yet our elites, even more so in Europe than here, have actively striven to destroy the concept of the "melting pot" in favor of such ideas as "a mosaic" or a "quilt." If America remains a "melting pot", the immigration question devolves to how best to ensure that the children of the current generation of immigrants can make the transition from being Mexicans to being Americans. If we are living in a mosaic, then the question is an entirely different and more dangerous one.Just a year ago I was pointing out that
. . .
I believe that much of the discomfort about immigration relates to this sense that we are allowing non-Americans who do not share our values to gain a toe hold in our country and have no confidence that our leaders will do what they should or could to encourage these people to become Americans.
Prior generations of immigrants, once they arrived in the USA were taught, by the public schools and by other civic organizations, traditional American values; more specifically, middle-class, Protestant values, within a Judeo-Christian tradition. People learned to read English by reading the King James Bible. The Protestant work ethic was promoted through Horatio Alger stories, and the value of delayed gratification was spoken of. School curricula stressed discipline and the "three R's", and included famous sermons, such as Governor John Winthrop's A Model of Christian Charity. People were taught and encouraged to serve their communities through volunteering, a most American trait. In short, immigrants were directed towards what it meant to live in an American culture; no one assumed that simply knowing the language meant one was acculturated.If the mosaicists would wake from their non-judgmental multi-culti PC slumber, they'd learn that most Latin American immigrants share these traditional American values:
Any politicians and/or political party that can find a way to re-frame this debate as about assimilation and Americanization, rather than illegal immigration, without a knee jerk reaction from the MSM condemning them as racist, will have a powerful message indeed. Once again, our elites will attempt to polarize the discussion but there is hope; their power to determine the parameters of discourse are failing (too slowly for my taste, but failing surely). We need this debate to be about creating more Americans and not about empowering illegal immigrants.And the sooner, the better.
posted by Fausta @ 11:23 AM
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Yesterday's blogburst has been a huge success. Thousand more have read about Guillermo Fariñas, thanks to the many blogs who participated.
This might, on the surface, seem a cause hardly worth dying for. After all, as recently as ten years ago I functioned pretty well without internet access. So why all the fuss? Shouldn't Dr. Farinas get over himself, have a good meal and learn to enjoy the island workers' paradise? In the silence of our mainstream media over his plight you can almost hear the jaded sighs of "I wish I could throw out my blackberry/cellphone/laptop and not be so constantly bothered with this flood of information."As Betsy says,
Think of how access to the Internet provides a a window on to the world and how such access can challenge tyranny. You can go here to sign a petition in support of Fariñas.At least the Canadian radio interviewed Val last night.
And then ponder why the American media isn't covering a fellow journalist who is willing to die to protest for the freedom to communicate on the Internet.
posted by Fausta @ 8:58 AM
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At Forbes, an article, Cardiac Critic, about cardiologist Steven E. Nissen.
On Wednesday, a panel of pediatricians will consider the safety of drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that are commonly used to treat attention deficit disorder. In a perspective published online Monday night in The New England Journal of Medicine, Nissen lays out his case that drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall may cause potential risks to the heart that many patients don't appreciate--and that these risks should be spelled out in a clear, black-box warning for consumers.No evidence of torture flights
. . .
In the NEJM editorial, Nissen spins what he sees as the worrisome story of these drugs. Methamphetamine was originally developed in 1891 and was first widely used in World War II to help Luftwaffe pilots stay alert. Newer versions (including one of the active ingredients in Adderall) were introduced as appetite suppressants in the 1950s and were soon being used to treat ADHD, then a rarely diagnosed disorder that made it hard for kids to function in school.
There is no evidence the US has used UK airspace for flights transferring terror suspects to countries where they could be tortured, the government says.At the blogs
Our state plan currently provides insurance for more than 3 times the estimated number of children living in poverty.Or, in plain English, your taxes will go up.
A convenient fabrication -- it gives him a foil and the story drama -- but a foolish one because it can be checked. The speech was given at the Washington Hilton before a full house, carried live on C-SPAN and then published by the American Enterprise Institute under its title "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World.'' (It can be read here.)Louisiana Conservative takes on the food police, among others, in this Monday Night Bible Study.
As indicated by the title, the speech was not about Iraq. It was a fairly theoretical critique of the four schools of American foreign policy: isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism and neoconservatism. The only successes I attributed to the Iraq War were two, and both self-evident: (1) that it had deposed Saddam Hussein and (2) that this had made other dictators think twice about the price of acquiring nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the fact that Gaddafi had turned over his secret nuclear program for dismantlement just months after Saddam's fall (in fact, on the very week of Saddam's capture).
In that entire 6,000-word lecture, I said not a single word about the course or conduct of the Iraq War. My only reference to the outcome of the war came toward the end of the lecture. Far from calling it an unqualified success, virtual or otherwise, I said quite bluntly that "it may be a bridge too far. Realists have been warning against the hubris of thinking we can transform an alien culture because of some postulated natural and universal human will to freedom. And they may yet be right.''
Tired of tofu? Sick of salad? REVOLT! Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man will put you back in touch with your Inner Hog.Paris Burning, Once Again, and today there's a general strike. Small wonder Dutch NRC Handelsblad doesn't like what it sees. Dave Cloud looks at the Hell no, we won't work attitude, which makes Larry Kudlow want to Paddle the French Fanny in a g-rated sort of way. Update Watch today's France2 Newscast and weep. More at Gateway Pundit.
posted by Fausta @ 7:29 AM
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Today, bloggers across the world honor a brave man, Guillermo Fariñas.
In Cuba, freedom is against the law. And anyone who resists the exercise of Fidel Castro’s tyranny is an outlaw, whether they do so silently, like a majority of Cubans, or whether they step up — like independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas — and put at risk their life and what little liberty they might have and go public with their opposition to the regime.At Critical Miami
We are blogging about this because we agree that it is an injusticeWould you starve yourself just to do the simple things?
Call your Senators, Congressmen, local news stations and the news networks and tell them what this man is doing and why he is doing it.Blogging for Coco
If you're a blogger, a quick post would be great.From Italy, Stefania posts about another dissident, Martha Beatriz Roque, and 14 more refugees.
the subject of this post will digress from the continuing story of the Havana that was, in order to publicize the valiant fight - and the plight - of a Very Brave Man who is fighting for the very things we of the blogger brotherhood and sisterhood take for granted, too often.Dean’s World says
They don't even deny people this freedom in China--they try to censor it, but they don't deny people access to it. In China they have it better! Is it even thinkable?My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Free people universally and regularly express outrage at Chinese censorship of the internet (and especially Google’s complicity). We write about and sign petitions for bloggers arrested for expressing their views. Meanwhile, Guillermo Fariñas Hernandez is dying just 90 miles from the United States for the right to have open access to the internet. Spread the word.Beth has more.
There’s a man in this world that is dying, but his light is not to be extinguished, far from that, his light shines bright, brighter that any other star surrounded by the dark sky of what is communist Cuba.Guillermo Farinas is Cuba
Contrary to Hollywood depictions, communism isn’t sexy. It’s an ugly stark non-fertile existence in which the human spirit is crushed and the soul is repeatedly raped. Humans were never meant to live in captivity and that is exactly what Communism is, a large state run prison in which parole is never an option. One is born into this prison and one eventually dies in this prison. Save for those few with the courage to break their shackles and attempt escape.Guillermo Fariñas: Victorious Unknown
What I know of Guillermo Fariñas is that he is a trained psychologist who turned his attention to journalism. He did so with the hope that as the outside world learned more of what was really going on in Cuba, something could be done about the human rights abuses that were rampant there. Mr. Fariñas was jailed, beat up by thugs on the street, and most recently had his access to the internet taken away. He decided to take a final stand with a hunger strike.Also at Texidor Blog, He Is Dying
Choice, the choice to die for freedom is a solitary decision.THOUGHT CONTROL, TOTALITARIAN IDEOLOGIES, & GUILLERMO FARIÑAS
I have spent much of my working life trying to free my patients from the constrictions their inner, unconscious conflicts impose upon their own minds. I have struggled to help free my sickest patients from the chains their illness imposes upon their minds. The evil that the Castro regime continues to perpetuate is a crime against humanity.at Pajamas Media:
TODAY, now, take two minutes and sign a petition. It costs you nothing, you won't get spammed, and you'll be doing something that people in Cuba can't do at all.
Freedom of religion, economic prosperity, and social justice CANNOT happen without the freedom of information for which he now gives his life.The Cotillion
Castro doesn't want us to know about Fariñas or about his country. I won't help Castro hide. Not today. ¡Ya no mas!More bloggers
Will Ed Asner, Mike Farrell, Steven Spielberg, Barbara Streisand, Harry Belafonte, Oliver Stone or just about anyone in Hollywood or the mainstream media protest Castro's barabarism? European and American leftists outraged over Gitmo when the rest of Cuba is a concentration camp? Journalists regularly land in jail to be beaten and abused in Castro's commie paradise, why is our fetid left completely indifferent to their plight?Love America First
posted by Fausta @ 7:35 AM
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Front-page article in today’s NYT: Meals That Moms Can Almost Call Their Own, talks about the latest fad, meal assembly centers, where
families like the Robbinses prepare two weeks' worth of dinners they can call their own with little more effort than it takes to buy a rotisserie chicken and a bag of salad.While I certainly applaud the entrepreneurial inventiveness of the people who came up with the meal assembly center concept (and of course, there’s the socializing factor of cooking with several other families) here’s my take: you can do this yourself in less time.
posted by Fausta @ 1:08 PM
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Classy Economist
Free-market economics, a legacy of the classical school, is thought of as an old conservative doctrine. But Mr. Sowell explains that it was in fact one of the most revolutionary concepts to emerge in the history of ideas. Moreover, "the thinking of the classical economist was not only a radical break from landmark intellectual figures like Plato and Machiavelli but also from mainstream thinking to this day." The notion of a self-equilibrating system--the market economy--meant a reduced role for intellectuals and politicians, he says. "And even today many still haven't accepted that their superior wisdom might be superfluous, if not damaging."On teaching:
"My job was to teach them economics, not teach them what I happen to believe," says Mr. Sowell, who adds that efforts by some today to counterbalance the prevailing liberalism in academia with more right-wing instructors is not only an exercise in futility but a disservice to students. "Even if you succeed in propagandizing the students while they're students, it doesn't tell you much [about how they'll turn out]. I suspect that over half [of the conservatives at the Hoover Institution] were on the left in their 20s. More important, though, let's assume for the sake of argument that, whatever you're propagandizing them with on the left or right, every conclusion you teach them is correct. It's only a matter of time before all those conclusions are obsolete because entirely different issues are going to arise over the lifetimes of these students. And so, if you haven't taught them how to weigh one argument against another, you haven't taught them anything".On outdated economic notions that don't expire:
"Has [John Kenneth] Galbraith lost any credibility? I remember 'The New Industrial State'"--the 1967 book in which Mr. Galbraith famously argued that large corporations were immune to marketplace forces--"but since then, Eastern Airlines has gone out of business. The Graflex Corporation has gone out of business. Similarly with all kinds of big businesses. This hasn't made the slightest dent in Galbraith's reputation. We have Paul Ehrlich, who has told us there would be mass starvation in the world in the '80s, and now we find our two biggest problems are obesity and how to get rid of agricultural surpluses." Mr. Sowell's conclusion is a cynical one. "I have a book called 'The Vision of the Anointed,' and there's a chapter in there called 'The Irrelevance of Evidence.'
posted by Fausta @ 11:57 AM
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(click on photo)
One person was killed in a huge explosion that destroyed a research building at a French university in the eastern city of Mulhouse on Friday, the fire brigade said.So, what provokes a snit from the Président de la République? (via Judith)Chirac flees summit in a fury over use of English
. . .
The reason for the blast, which was heard across much of the city close to the Swiss and German borders, was not immediately known. The institute has some 650 students and staff.
The UNEF student union said the complex was not occupied by students as part of protests against a youth jobs law that have hit universities around France.
PRESIDENT CHIRAC stormed out of the first session of a European Union summit dominated by a row over French nationalism because a fellow Frenchman insisted on speaking English.Sad.
If Israel had never appeared on the map, the energy of pan-Arab nationalism movement, which dominated Arab politics in the post-war era, would have been directed against two other neighbors: Turkey and Iran. To a certain extent, it was anyway. Even today, the Arab League claims that the Turkish province of Iskanderun is "usurped Arab territory" and regards the Iranian province of Khuzestan as "occupied Arab land."Read the rest.
posted by Fausta @ 8:17 AM
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Last evening I was watching France2 news as usual, when they reported on an astonishing story.
posted by Fausta @ 3:08 PM
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posted by Fausta @ 9:05 AM
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The blogburst's on Monday!
you might want to use in your post.urge each and every one of you, blogger and non-blogger alike, to spread the word and join us, either via your blog, webpage or email campaign.You can email me at faustaw-at-yahoo-dot-com or val-at-babalublog-dot-com with your post, if you blog, or, if you don't blog but want to express solidarity I'll be happy to post your email (Please make sure you enter "Guillermo Fariñas" on the subject line).
. . .
The more people out there exposing the truth, the less places lies have to hide.
posted by Fausta @ 10:27 AM
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The Watcher of Weasels Council has a vacancy since New Sisyphus is retiring from blogging. Read up on the rules and apply for the position if you can.
Michelle Malkin's readers note that the CPT statement refers to the hostages' "release" instead of their rescue. Lets make it clear for these folks: your activists were not "released" by some kind hearted effort of the terrorists. You were rescued by a military coalition. How ironic it is that you were saved by an organization you protest. If you have the faith to love your enemies, the least you can do is show some freakin gratitude towards the brave people that rescued you from death.Today's articles from Maria:
Venezuelan police helped the U.S. ambassador leave a Caracas building after a group of President Hugo Chavez's supporters blockaded him inside, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.Let's hope Hugo hasn't been getting ideas from his Iranian friends.
The protesting workers are among nearly a million migrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and elsewhere who have poured into Dubai to provide the low-wage muscle behind one of the world's great building boomsMore articles from Maria
Canada is planning to capitalize on shortages of natural gas, exacerbated by last year's hurricanes, by importing vast quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia to be exported to the United States.
Perhaps the most fundamentally flawed idea is this all-too-common one: "Public schools were created to provide a 'public good': education for all, regardless of a family's ability to pay ... By contrast, under a voucher system that gives public dollars to completely unmonitored private schools, there is no such right to expect or demand accountability for student performance or how tax dollars are spent." They don't get it. Competition brings accountability. Private schools may be "unmonitored" by bureaucrats, but they face the most demanding kind of supervision our society provides: a market full of freely choosing individuals. Parents' desire for a good education for their children is a much more powerful check on schools than any politician's law or union rule. The people who want to control every young American's education like to talk about accountability, but what they want is to make schools accountable to anointed bureaucrats who think they know what's best for all of us. They evade real accountability — the kind of accountability where if a student or parent realizes a school isn't doing its job, he can find another one.Mark Steyn: For Japan and the West, it's breed or die
posted by Fausta @ 9:32 AM
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Babalu has been posting on Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas. Fariñas has been on hunger strike to protest Cuba's cutting off his e-mail access since Jan. 31. He desisted briefly and has now resumed the hunger strike a week ago, according to according to Reporters Without Borders.
I propose a blogburst/"carnival" in honor of Guillermo FariñasIn short, this from the ground up approach manifest in blogging can ultimately help to bring about any form of social change a democratic society thinks worthwhile. All that is required is an individual with a good idea, or different perspective, with the determination to put their thoughts out there on the Internet consistently over a period of time long enough to allow the concept to germinate and hopefully one day resonate through a significant portion of the potential audience. And as the Caucasus project shows, the potential audience today for bloggers is the whole wide world.
posted by Fausta @ 9:56 AM
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Via Maria, Juan Forero writes about Hugo's popularity among the Sandalista elites. The Forero article doesn't mention Chomsky, but you can be sure he's proclaimed that Venezuelan political process as an example for Latin America and the rest of the world, but he's not alone. Apparently there's a tourism industry focusing on those believing the charismatic-leader-helping-the-poor-offering-free-health-care-education-adult-literacy-and-job-training-initiatives-that-help-millions-of-Venezuelans meme.
Chavez is not a leftist, he is not a rightist, nor is he truly a democrat. He is an authoritarian, the paradigm of the Latin American strong man. Chavez has one true love, and that is himself.Read it all.
posted by Fausta @ 8:50 AM
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Democratic apostasy: The martyrdom of Abdul Rahman. Civil Commotion has more on the case.
posted by Fausta @ 8:04 AM
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Peaktalk quotes Dutch Minister for Transportation Karla Peijs:
Minister Peijs sees the Islamic headscarf no longer as a sign of repression. The scarf "gives women freedom" says the minister in an interview with the TelegraafI find it ironic that the veiled woman can be a Minister for Transportation in her country but wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house unless chaperoned by a man if she lived under Sharia law, and would not be allowed to drive her own transportation.
The point is not whether Muslim women are free to cover themselves up. It's whether they're free not to; it's what happens if they decide not to use a veil, what counts. And we know what happens: in most Islamic countries, and in Islamic areas in Western cities, at a bare minimum it means at least not being able to leave their homes.Or in this?
Where's the "liberation" in that?
Sadr's idea was that, by wearing the headgear, Shiite women would be clearly marked out, and thus spared sexual harassment, and rape, by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian gunmen who at the time controlled southern Lebanon.In every culture where this [i.e., where women are completely covered up] is the norm, women are oppressed.
posted by Fausta @ 4:51 PM
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Whiny children, claims a new study, tend to grow up rigid and traditional
The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.Forgive my whiny ignorance, but this sounds like psychobabble for: the liberal kids haven't got around to finding a job yet.
The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests.
posted by Fausta @ 11:07 AM
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Via LGF, another sign of change at the Vatican: Vatican change of heart over 'barbaric' Crusades
Pope Benedict reached out to Muslims and Jews after his election and called for dialogue. However, the Pope, who is due to visit Turkey in November, has in the past suggested that Turkey’s Muslim culture is at variance with Europe’s Christian roots.If you haven't read it yet, read Robert Spencer's book:
At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian lands and the Muslim devastation of the Holy Places”.
“The debate has been reopened,” La Stampa said. Professor De Mattei noted that the desecration of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by Muslim forces in 1009 had helped to provoke the First Crusade at the end of the 11th century, called by Pope Urban II.
He said that the Crusaders were “martyrs” who had “sacrificed their lives for the faith”. He was backed by Jonathan Riley-Smith, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, who said that those who sought forgiveness for the Crusades “do not know their history”.
Much more than a photo-op, Swarmer was launched as a correct "package" combining U.S. Army airborne, infantry, and cavalry assets along with Iraqi infantry and commandos against a predetermined series of targets. The assault was based on sound intelligence gathered over the past few weeks, and thoroughly developed in the days prior to the first helicopter lifting off the pad.B vitamins spark major U.S. Supreme Court case
Swarmer has thus far resulted in the seizing of numerous weapons caches – netting hundreds of mortar-rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, 130-mm artillery rounds, hand-grenades, machineguns, assault rifles, and nearly 2,000 rounds of armor-piercing rifle ammunition – as well as recovering terrorist training manuals and videos, stolen Iraqi military uniforms, and various triggers and devices used to detonate explosives.
Also, a substantial number of insurgents (at least one, as of this writing, is said to be a "ringleader" in the recent bombing of the Golden Dome shrine in Samarra) continue to be captured, and some will no doubt yield solid intelligence for future operations.
Yes, Swarmer is proving-out to be both a bloodless military operation – netting weapons, bad guys, and fresh intelligence – and a successful show of force aimed at energizing Iraqi soldiers and demoralizing insurgents: a tactic often employed by smart, successful armies. A triumph in any military commander’s book: Hardly "under-whelming" or a "media stunt."
posted by Fausta @ 9:43 AM
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New Jersey Voices
Fausta was born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico and is a long-term resident of Princeton, New Jersey. She discusses New Jersey, taxation, current events, and how news are reported in the French and Spanish-language media at Fausta's Blog.
