Saturday afternoon advice,

... for my friend J., this is why I don't:
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy:

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Terror attack at Glasgow airport

Updated

Blogger appears to not be publishing my posts. I post them, they are entered as "published" but they don't show on my page.

Anyway, I'm back home today and watching on TV the latest on the terrorist attack on Glasgow airport. Will post more later.

Video via LGF

Live Sky News feed via Beth.

Update
"Police were scuffling with a gentleman"?
That's no gentleman, that's a terrorist

Sean has a great round-up and photos. A lot more at Hot Air

Update 2
The airport travelers knocked the suspects to the ground as they tried to flee the burning jeep.

A few reasons why many Hispanics didn't want the immigration bill

Immigration Report: The Hispanic View:
A few reasons why many Hispanics didn't want the immigration bill

My latest article is up at Pajamas Media, along with Rick Moran's Immigration Report: The Gringo View:
The fallout from the immigration fiasco spells trouble for the GOP

I'll be on the road today.

Car bomb found in London

Car bomb found in central London in Haymarket

Pajamas Media has more.

Night

Kill Devil Hills, NC, Wednesday, June 27, 8:07PM:

I'm leaving for Durham, but will post once I get there.
In the meantime, here's an excellent post from Gagdad Bob, On the Backwardness of Progressives: Let Me Count the Ways

Update, later: I'm sorry I haven't posted, but I'm working on an article you'll read tomorrow.

The Republicans who voted for cloture

The list:
Bob Bennett of Utah
Kit Bond of Missouri
Sam Brownback of Kansas
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Norm Coleman of Minnesota
Susan Collins of Maine
Larry Craig of Idaho
Pete Domenici of New Mexico
John Ensign of Nevada
Lindsey Grahamn of South Carolina
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
Chuck Hagel of Nebraska
Jon Kyl of Arizona
Trent Lott of Mississippi
Richard Lugar of Indiana
Mel Martinez of Florida
John McCain of Arizona
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
Lisa Murkowski from Alaska
Olympia Snowe from Maine
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
Ted Stevens of Alaska
George Voinovich of Ohio
John Warner of Virginia

If you have donated to the Republican National Committee, you can call 202-863-8743 and ask for a refund.

In the house, Caucus vows fight if immigration pact reaches the House

IMMIGRATION REFORM CAUCUS SUPPORTS RESOLUTION OPPOSING KENNEDY-BUSH AMNESTY BILL

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Members of the Immigration Reform Caucus (IRC) issued the following statements regarding the adoption of a resolution opposing the Kennedy-Bush amnesty bill by the House Republican Conference:

Chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus Brian Bilbray: “The Kennedy-Bush amnesty bill is doing more to unify the Republicans in the House who believe that we are a country of laws. This resolution sends a clear message that we stand together in united opposition to any bill that rewards illegal behavior with amnesty.”

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL): “This vote is an affirmation of what my constituents and I have been saying for nearly two years now. The Senate amnesty plan is misguided and takes America in the wrong direction. With this vote House Republicans are sending a clear message to our constituents; amnesty will not fly in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rep. Phil Gingrey, M.D. (R-GA): “As the Senate continues debating their misguided immigration bill, House Republicans have made it clear that we will not waiver from our principles of reform. Any legislation we enact must uphold the rule of law, secure our borders and benefit the American people and economy. The Senate bill simply does not pass the test. In 1986, Congress passed a terrible amnesty bill that was hailed as the solution to our illegal immigration problem. It only takes a quick glance around Georgia to realize the ’86 bill was a complete failure. The Senate should heed the lessons of that mistake; sadly, their current bill replicates it instead.”

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC): “It’s time the Senate stops listening to their own voices and starts listening to the American people. The American people want secure borders and they want our laws enforced. I hear them loud and clear, and that is why I don’t support the Senate immigration/amnesty bill.”

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL 13): “I disagree with the president and my colleagues in the Senate who support this bill. This bill rewards illegal behavior by granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and is a slap in the face to those who played by the rules and complied with our laws. I stand with my constituents who feel our focus should be on securing the border, enforcing our laws, and creating a tamper-proof id card for non-citizens.”

Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX): “Why on earth would we grant special status to those who knowingly violated our laws? We must secure our borders first and that must be priority number one for illegal immigration reform – not rewarding law-breakers with blanket amnesty.”

Rep. John Boozman (R-AR): “The plan offered by Senate is, ultimately, a reward for illegal behavior. We should not be granting a pass to millions of illegal immigrants, while others go out of their way to be in the United State legally. You can’t solve the problems of illegal immigration by making everyone legal. Leaders from both parties in the House have publicly stated their opposition to at least one major part of this plan, and I am glad to stand with my colleagues in announcing our disapproval of the Senate plan. If it comes to the House in its present form, I will vote against it.”

Listen to Tell Me More today on NPR

Updated with the audio link
Today I am a guest in Michel Martin's NPR show, Tell Me More.

It came about last week when I was lying on a beach towel (who was covered with more sunblock, sand, and sea water, the towel or I? We'll never know) when my friend Josue Sierra called and told me that he had given my name to Michel's producer. They were looking for a Hispanic conservative.

To make a long story short, yesterday afternoon The Husband and I headed to Norfolk, Virginia, to the local PBS affiliate, WHRO. We arrived early, but luckily right before a big thunderstorm rolled in.

A nice young man led me to the studio room where he'd connect to the Washington, DC studio where the show is recorded. At 2:55PM I was comfortably seated and prepared for the connection.

And then we waited for 20 minutes.

Once the connection problems were ironed out, the show started recording. Michel's guests were Jan Donaldson of Hot Ghetto Mess.com, who was at the studio with Michel, Ana Marie Cox of Time.com (formerly Wonkette), who was calling from her office in DC, and myself.

The first item of discussion was the upcoming Democrat debate. Michel's going to be one of the panelists asking the candidates questions.

We had been asked beforehand to provide the question we would ask, and here is mine:
For me personally, it is very important to know,
What would you offer as incentives to entrepreneurs like myself - who hold MBAs and have sponsored foreign programmers - so we can continue to attract the best and brightest workers, and keep them?
And also,
How do you propose to reduce the costs and the barriers entrepreneurs like myself face now?

I hope the question makes it to the debate.

The conversation was animated, amusing, and amicable. I had a great time, and hope to be able to do it again soon.

One side note: After living the traffic in the North East, I am amazed at how little traffic there is in the Durham, Raleigh, and Norfolk areas by comparison.

On the way back The Husband and I stopped at a nice restaurant for dinner and enjoyed a very pleasant evening by the sea.

Not a bad way to spend a vacation afternoon, not bad at all.

The show airs today. Check your local NPR station for times. Here's the live stream for all NPR shows

Update
Here's the audio to the segment. You can also access it from here



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Death on the sands! Call the nanny state!

Via Huber,
Reason on Line uncovers the scandal: Castles Made of Sand IV: The Revenge -- This Time It's Personal

Is this from The Onion?

Noooo....

The article's in the New England Journal of Medicine: Sudden Death from Collapsing Sand Holes. Where the NJEM goes, can CNN be far behind?

Or, as a commenter in the Reason post says,

Good thing the New England Journal of Medicine is covering this issue...nothing screams Medicine like people falling into holes...

Here, I've invented a cure: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING
You can thank me later. Nominations to the Nobel Prize for Medicine are deeply appreciated.

(Later today I'll go to the beach and photograph one of these lurking dangers as a public service to my readers.)

Update, Saturday June 30:
I did go to the beach that day and photographed, but wasn't able to post the photos because I was too lazy until today. So here you have them:

Holes to China, or craters of death?

This one has a lethal weapon ready to chew your toes:


I post, you decide.

Tasteless, Tacky And Crude

says Siggy, of the video that Gates of Vienna received and posted.

Dymphna, Baron Bodissey, and Siggy were my podcast guests a month ago. They'll be my guests next Monday, July 2 at noon.

We'll discuss this and other developments.

Puerto Rico and Hugo's subs, in today's round-up

No, not these subs; the Russian subs: Mora writes,

Chavez is heading to Russia in the next few days, to discuss the purchase of five kilo-class submarines, and possibly four more advanced amur-class subs. There are questions as to how he would be able to finance them as well as how obtain the advanced training to bring them online, but there is no question from his statments that he wants them.

The financing might involve not only oil, but also drugs. As I have pointed out, Hugo needs money for financing his "Bolivarian Revolution", i.e., his desire to control all of Latin America's politics. For that he needs money. A huge amount of money. The drug trade is one source.

As for the advanced training, I'm sure Putin will provide the personnel as part of the deal. Don't believe for a moment that Vlad's going to hand Hugo valuable war weapons without keeping a firm hand in the works.

Mora also points out,

Although there are many islands in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf Of Mexico, and many colonial powers, it's significant that Chavez alluded to the U.S.'s and France's prime presences there. In the past he's threatened Netherlands and its overseas territories, and he's always hated Britain, but now he seems to have singled out France. While Chavez's antipathy to the U.S. is well-known, what's less well-known is that France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has an interest in the region and a clear understanding about Chavez. He's stepped up his ties to Venezuela's battered neighbor, Colombia, and probably will become more active in the region as Chavez's aggression steps up. Chavez knows this, and wants to throw out a few threat to France and the U.S. now.

This segues well with my theory on the drug trade: France has repeatedly caught tons of cocaine proceeding from Caracas in the past (including the seizing of a vessel carrying 18 tons of cocaine on March last year. I explored this connection between Chavez and the drug trade on my post of April 13, 2006 (scroll down).

Hugo may be fooling some, but he's certainly not fooling Lech Waleska: Via Gateway Pundit

"I believe Chávez is a huge demagogue and populist who says one thing and does a quite different thing. He likes giving away what does not belong to him and tries to take advantage of people's dissatisfaction," he added.

One thing for sure, Hugo's not fooling Newton---------------------------------------------------------
Immigration and Terrorists in the US: Connect the Dots

In a nutshell - terrorists flew under the radar in 1986, over-stayed visas, and rode the curtails of illegal Mexicans who had crossed the border all the way to citizenship. Do we want to do that again? Can we afford it?

---------------------------------------------------------
In other, totally unrelated news, Hitchens asks, Let's stop channelling angry Muslims

Look Forward to Anger
It's impossible to satisfy "Rage Boy" and his ilk. It's stupid to try.
...
The lives of Shiite Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Christians—to say nothing of atheists or secularists—are considered by Sunni militants to be of little or no account. And yet they accuse those who criticize them of bigotry! And many people are so anxious to pre-empt this accusation that they ventriloquize the reactions of Sunni mobs as if they were the vox populi, all the while muttering that we must take care not to offend such supersensitive people.

This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world's Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?

We may have to put up with the Rage Boys of the world, but we ought not to do their work for them, and we must not cry before we have been hurt. In front of me is a copy of this week's Economist, which states that Rushdie's 1989 death warrant was "punishment for the book's unflattering depiction of the Prophet Muhammad." There is no direct depiction of the prophet in this work of fiction, and the reverie about his many wives occurs in the dream of a madman. Nobody in Ayatollah Khomeini's circle could possibly have read the book for him before he issued a fatwah, which made it dangerous to possess. Yet on that occasion, the bookstore chains of America pulled The Satanic Verses from their shelves, just as Borders shamefully pulled Free Inquiry (a magazine for which I write) after it reproduced the Danish cartoons. Rage Boy keenly looks forward to anger, while we worriedly anticipate trouble, and fret about etiquette, and prepare the next retreat. If taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean living at the pleasure of Rage Boy, and that I am not prepared to do.

Interesting to see that The Economist is referring to the Prophet Mohammed; I've been subscribing to The Economist for decades now and never once have I seen them refer to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fred Thompson has more to say about Rushdie.
---------------------------------------------------------
GreenMountain politics posts on Giuliani.

Go, Pundit, Go has a video on the Dems and the unions

---------------------------------------------------------
Side note:
We've been on the road, and I'm happy to recommend the Subway franchise for a fast lunch. You can get a freshly-made salad with as many or as few toppings as you like, without having to put up with greasy burgers or overfried, overseasoned chicken.


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One-Way U.S. Trade For Ecuador?, asks IBD

Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, who wants to dissolve his country's Congress by an assembly with powers to rewrite the volatile nation's constitution, a la Hugo, is knocking at our door asking for free trade:

Presidents Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Evo Morales of Bolivia, are both running notoriously anti-American regimes. They have blasted the U.S. as a capitalist oppressor, and said their whole national mission is to slip its imperialist shackles. Needless to say, they've been no friend to the U.S. in the United Nations. Worse yet, they've forged alliances with some of America's worst enemies, like Iran and Cuba. They've also grown increasingly slack and obstructive in even fighting the drug war that plagues the entire Andean region. Morales has increased coca production by 8%, keeping the street price of cocaine steady even as Colombia's production falls 9%. Ecuador has emerged as a major drug transshipment point and money laundering center - something that is evident by its well-developed illegal immigrant smuggling routes to the U.S., which are the region's best. Ecuador has announced "irrevocably" that it will shut down a tiny U.S. military base at Manta port that tracks drug planes, in order to kick out the U.S. imperialists.

But in exchange for fighting the war on drugs, they've both been recipients of large amounts of U.S. aid in 2006 - $120 million in Bolivia's case and $500 million in Ecuador's. Along with this aid, which is both humanitarian and technical, they both have preferential "ATPDEA" trading privileges to sell their goods duty-free in the U.S. without having to reciprocate the favor to American firms.

With a setup like that, they can, in practical terms, reject and obstruct the idea of real free trade, which would ask them to open their markets to U.S. competition, as long as they retain their current trade privileges. Thus, America's generosity to them has provided a platform for them to condemn real free trade with impunity. But under the radar, they feverishly want a continuation of these one-way US trading privileges, which is why they're suddenly telling America they never really meant it about the 'imperialismo' charges and all that as the expiration beckons.

Investor's Business Daily has more:
Foreign Relations: Should the U.S. offer preferential trade privileges to hostile anti-American regimes that view them as cheap handouts? Offering nothing in return, Ecuador thinks so. We are less sure

The U.S. doesn't ask much from Ecuador. Sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has only provided a tiny "forward operating base" at the port of Manta, with 300 U.S. troops conducting aerial surveillance to keep Colombia's FARC Marxist narcoterrorists from bringing war to Ecuador as they have to their own country.

Instead of helping on that front, Ecuador now vows to shut down the Manta base and let the skies there go unpatrolled.

The Manta shutdown ends any rationale for APTDEA. So does Correa's refusal to recognize the FARC as a terrorist organization or to chase its operatives from Ecuadorean soil.

Worse, Ecuador has harassed Colombia with lawsuits as it tries to eradicate coca fields, making Colombia's war that much harder.

Read both.

In other, "Gimme, gimme!" news, Castro Says U.S. Must Change Its Cuba Policy `Unilaterally'.
But, is he still wearing his jogging suit?



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Bloomberg, and Hillary

Mitchell Langbert rips into the N Sun's idea that Bloomberg would win if he ran for President: New York's UINO Bloomberg: Is the MSM on Drugs?

Tying all of these developments together, the Sun's first page headline on Friday claimed that Mayor Bloomberg has a chance of winning the presidency, apparently based on the counter-factual claim that Mayor Bloomberg is "competent". Yet, the article fails to mention reports of the Mayor's incompetence in the Sun's own pages. As the Sun's Alicia Colon points out, the Mayor has accomplished little save drive the middle class from New York:

"...many New Yorkers think he's done a great job as mayor. They must all be real estate developers, because one thing I'll give Bloomberg credit for is giving them the heart and soul of New York City while driving real New Yorkers to other states."

Mayor Bloomberg has apparently driven the middle class out of New York competently, because none of the mainstream media reports that story. That story is the story of a real estate bubble. In the 1990s only millionaires could afford a city apartment. Since Mayor Bloomberg's election, only deca-millionaires ($10 million and up net worth) can afford one. Studios go for over a million dollars. Such a modest price is understandable because recent grads just starting out with low incomes need somewhere to live. Rent control, housing regulation, subsidies for super-developments all spell "government-induced shortage". All of this has proceeded on Mayor Bloomberg's watch. Yet, New York's MSM trumpets "competence".

In August 2006 , I suggested that Mayor Bloomberg is an INO, independent in name only. Now, the consensus seems to be that he's a UINO, unaffiliated in name only. In either case, Bloomberg's positions are across the board left/liberal. He has done nothing to shrink government, eliminate waste or lower taxes. He has interfered in areas such as the reconstruction of the Twin Towers where he lacks competence. His urban planning exercises, such as the master plan and the football stadium, have been manifestly incompetent. He has implemented intrusive health regulations. He has harassed small business and provided private-use eminent domain support to billionaire developers.

Read it all - Langbert concludes with,

They all point to the importance of a renewed alliance between economic liberals and the religious right. If a conservative candidate can make a convincing case that satisfies these two groups, he or she will be unbeatable.

I agree - A few weeks ago I said that a Republican candidate can win, but it'd be a matter of running against the insiders. It can be done - Sarkozy just did in France.

James Joyner has more on Gotham's megalomaniacs.

And now, about Hillary,
Investor's Business Daily

Because even as the video spoofing the Sopranos was being flashed around the Internet, serious charges of political corruption were about to be leveled against Hillary Clinton in a California court. As it turns out, the Clintons-as-crime-family trope in Hillary's campaign video might be a little too close for comfort.

The scandal involves allegations by movie producer Peter Paul that a 2000 senatorial fundraiser for Clinton in Hollywood violated campaign laws. Paul claims he spent $2 million to produce the fundraising event — a de facto campaign expenditure. Under campaign law then in effect, campaign gifts were limited to $2,000.

He further claims that Hillary Clinton knew of his behind-the-scenes illegal activity and approved of it.

This Friday, Paul's attorney says he will file an appeals court brief seeking the admission of new evidence in the case: a video in which Hillary Clinton is heard, over a speakerphone, thanking Paul in advance for putting on the fundraiser. "I wanted to call and personally thank all of you," she says on the tape. "It's going to mean a lot to the president, too," she adds.

That last part is crucial, since Paul maintains the only reason he put the fundraiser on was to get Bill Clinton to serve as a "rainmaker" for a now-defunct Internet company that Paul headed.

The Federal Elections Commission already found Clinton's 2000 senatorial campaign failed to report all the money it raised during the event that Paul produced. This takes that a step further.

Doug Ross explains Hillary Clinton and "The Largest Election Law Fraud in History". This is a must-read post. Doug clearly explains the latest Clinton scandal, which is of course bypassed by the MSM (which is too busy talking about Paris Hilton's latest).

The post includes two videos:


and


Go to Doug Ross's post and read it all.

You won't find this at the WaPo, which is busy talking about hillarycare
-----------------------------------------------
In other political news, you know Dick Cheney's the one in the bull's eye when the WaPo starts running a long series of long articles on its front page. Expect the Libs to start crying for blood more loudly than they already are.


Technorati: Hillary Clinton Michael Bloomberg
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I've heard that things are bigger in Texas...

... but I never heard that they were bigger in India, too:

Granted, I'm not the most experienced woman in the world, but those look awful big.

Movie reviews, and a photo

First the picture,
Durham, NC, Monday morning


We saw Oceans 13 last night and liked it for what it is: a showcase for Las Vegas, and for the stars. One thing for sure: it is one expensive-looking movie. David Paymer steals the show as the hapless hotel reviewer.

Here's the trailer:


A lot of people are deploring all these movie sequels; it's just another way of marketing the old serial movies, like the Thin Man series, and the Sherlock Holmes series of old.

Update, Monday 25 June
Was the Al Pacino character an architect from Dubai?

Jules Crittenden rips Ebert's review, via Larwyn. Roger Ebert is a Bloviating Ass, for sure.

Also via Larwyn, A Jacksonian looks at Robots for the future of farming.

I'm adding Conservative Beach Girl to my blogroll.

GM Roper hands out another Dimwitted Dodo Award.

A little life, saved

I don't know if Dr Sanity's having a Carnival today, but here's the link all the same The Carnival is up:



And, if you can't get the dog to the beach, get the beach to the dog,

Did you listen to the Father's Day podcast yet?

Here it is: My guests are Tony Woodlief and David Bernstein.

This week the Woodlief family welcomes a new member. Congratulations!

Victor Davis Hanson goes fishing with his son

I adore VDH's writing, and this post is particularly good,
World Gone By
Some 20 years ago I went fishing in the California mountains and had the best trout ever, and would eat the trout I fish now (rather than throw it back in the water), which obviously means I'm of the "older generation" mindset. But not to worry, I'll continue lying about my age for as long as I'm able to lie.

Hanson also has a few thoughts on Gazitis,

Any examination of the multimillionaire spoiled brat Bin-Laden, or the aristocratic and snobbish Egyptian Dr. Zawahiri, or the other middle-class 9/11 killers might suggest that poverty is no requisite for jihadism. In fact, most of the worst of the this very sad bunch are affluent and have had exposure to the Western affluence and liberality.
...
One should read about the life of Sayyid Qutb, intellectual architect of the Muslim Brotherhood that we now apparently wish to embrace. He hated the very thought of Jews, though he had seen few if any in Egypt, and was only to encounter them in any real number in America. This middle-class Egyptian—subsidized generously by his own government, treated well and embraced by Americans—grew to detest the West for its liberality, its equality of the sexes, its material wealth, its friendship with the Jews.

In other words, his wretched life reminds us that envy, jealousy, anger at lost stature, these primordial emotions fuel jihadism. They may be enhanced by general misery, acerbated by statist failures and authoritarian governments, but ultimately the nihilist rages are attributable to the lethal mix of Middle East tribalism and Islam’s utter failure to account for and live with modernity.

Thinking that radical Islam will soften itself or evolve is analogous to a victorious Confederacy voluntarily ending slavery about 1870, a kinder, gentler Soviet Union without the gulags, Hitler in his dotage dismantling Auschwitz, or Tojo in the 1950s turning his old zeal to flooding the Co-Prosperity Sphere with cars and radios.

And VDH also has an installment of his novel.

Good stuff.
------------------------------------------------------
Dr Krauthammer calls it the Last chance for Abbas.

I disagree. For as long as the UN and the EU sympahtize with Fatah, there will always be another chance.

Pun heaven

My dear friend Maria sent these, which in a way explains why we are friends,

(1) King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it."
"But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested. "Don't you
know who I am? I am the king!"
Croesus replied, "When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you
are."

(2) Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. However, all the Swiss league records were unfortunately destroyed in a fire, and we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.

(3) A man rushed into a busy doctor's office and shouted "Doctor! I think
I'm shrinking!!"
The doctor calmly responded, "Now, settle down. You'll just have to be a
little patient."

(4) A marine biologist developed a race of genetically engineered dolphins that could live forever if they were fed a steady diet of seagulls. One day, his supply of the birds ran out so he had to go out and trap some more.
On the way back, he spied two lions asleep on the road. Afraid to wake them, he gingerly stepped over them. Immediately, he was arrested and charged with transporting gulls across sedate lions for immortal porpoises.

(5) Back in the 1800s the Tates Watch Company of Massachusetts wanted to produce other products and, since they already made the cases for watches, they used them to produce compasses. The new compasses were so bad that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California . This, of course, is the origin of the expression, "He who has a Tates is lost!"

(6) A thief broke into the local police station and stole all the toilets and urinals, leaving no clues. A spokesperson was quoted as saying, "We have absolutely nothing to go on."

(7) An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man.
After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."

(8) A famous Viking explorer returned home from a voyage and found his name missing from the town register. His wife insisted on complaining to the local civic official who apologized profusely saying, "I must have taken Leif off my census."

(9) There were three Indian squaws. One slept on a deer skin, one slept on an elk skin, and the third slept on a hippopotamus skin. All three became pregnant, and the first two each had a baby boy. The one who slept on the hippopotamus skin had twin boys. This goes to prove that the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.

(10) A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal brujo who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the brujo looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, who needs enemas?"

Sunset

Friday, June 22, 2007 8:25PM

Sicko, and Friday round-up

Updated
Via Larwyn, Prepare to be Sickened by SiCKO

Literally every day, the mainstream media in the countries whose government-run medical systems Moore holds up as superior models publish stories documenting the failure of mandatory, no-opt-out, state-run medical care. The laundry list of ills, in the U.K. alone, includes patients waiting months or even years for critical drugs and treatments (sometimes becoming disabled or dying because of the delay or lack of care), people denied therapies altogether because of rationing or cost (see, for example, an article last February in The Scotsman, “Cancer patients told life-prolonging treatment is too expensive for NHS”), an explosion in the size of the medical bureaucracy, and thousands of physicians taking to the streets earlier this year to protest.

One bottom line, so to speak, is particularly telling: Moore, who is obese, would most likely be denied a number of common health care procedures and treatments in one of his favored government-controlled socialist medicine systems, the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS), because of his excessive weight. Recently, the cash-strapped NHS actually started limiting or prohibiting therapies for residents who are fat or who smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol.

In Princeton, the Public Library has been banging the drum on socialized health care for a while, inviting Paul Krugman to ignore the facts about the French healthcare system and featuring a film on Cuba's healthcare at the Princeton Human Rights Film Festival, by which they not only managed to ignore Cuba's huuman rights record but also Cuba's apartheid health care system, even when three members of the audience tried to talk about it.

I expect the PPL will be showing SICKO soon.

Update: Michael Moore's Shticko: His health care jeremiad won't win any converts

And I won't be surprised if Sicko has wonderful things to say about the Venezuelan healthcare; too bad Michael didn't bring along any Norwegian reporters

Speaking of Venezuela,
Remember the fallen viaduct in Caracas?

Well, a new one's up.

In other Venezuelan news, The constitutional changes draft has been leaked: the path to an eternal Chavez dictatorship and kiss what's left of your private property good-bye. Update Dymphna has more on Hugo's latest.
--------------------------------------------------------
Joe finds some Academic Fantasies Exploited

Abbas: Hamas Creating ‘Empire of Darkness’ unlike Fatah's sweetness and lignt. The Guardian blames the US and Israel, of course.

Tony Blair's going to Rome

Head-to-toe Muslim veils test tolerance of secular Britain. Indeed.

El Cafe Cubano continues the Friday fast for all political prisoners

Unlike the Brits who allowed themselves to be taken hostage, the Aussies repelled an Iranian attempt to capture a boarding party. Update: Richard North has more on the story and how it's covered by the blogs and by the MSM.
--------------------------------------------------------
Via Irwin, June 20, 2007 Paul Krugman Four Years Ago Today. Krugman's wrong on things other than French healthcare, too.
--------------------------------------------------------
Via Bob, Harvard Dean of Freshmen Advertises "Scintillating and Sexy" Talk, since college students don't think of sex at all.
--------------------------------------------------------

George not-in-my-back-yard Clooney


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Sunrise

Friday, June 22, 2007, 5:55AM

The Trojan condoms pigs

A friend just emailed this:

The lyrics say,

Take another look at what I got,
'cause honey, you have to admit,
I know what it takes
to make your heart sing,
but look again, baby,
I just got wings

I'm of two minds on this:
It is funny.
And it's appalling that only the men are shown as pigs.

Face it, it's not just men who go into bars looking for sex.

Is the ad anti-men? Should TV stations show this ad? If so, at all times of day? Care to comment?


technorati: Trojan condom
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Wednesday evening

Wednesday, June 20, 7:30PM

A few thoughts by the beach

Every day when I first wake up I pray a Rosary in thanks, for I live a most privileged life filled with blessings.

Some of it may have to do with my name.

In Spanish, the name Fausta is most unusual for a woman. There are many Faustos, but women are usually named Faustina, which carries a softer connotation as the ina ending is also used as a diminutive. There are very few diminutive aspects to my personality, as those who know me well will tell you.

Faust in any language, to anyone familiar with Western opera and literature, connotes being gypped by unsavory characters. Frequently the person inquiring about my name is not fully familiar with the Faustian plot, and I have been asked if I was named after the devil. (I have developed a number of cutting remarks which have come in handy for those inquiries, thanks. Some day I'll post about that.) Classical scholars do know that Fausta was the wife of Constantine the Great, and she was up to no good. Probably becasue of this, many new visitors to this blog think Fausta is a pseudonym, when it actually is my real name.

I'm happy to report that I have not engaged in any Faustian dealings and that I was named after my grandma, a nice little old lady with flawless fair skin and snow-white hair, not after any conniving Roman empresses.

Fausta, on the other hand, is also an adjective in Spanish, meaning fortuitous, and also, happy in a splendid way. So I have been blessed with the life my name invokes.

Granted, mine is a simple mind and I derive great joy from the simplest things. Like stair-climbing, for instance.

Yesterday I went up and down four flights of stairs several times during the day. It was a hot and humid day and I was perspiring heavily (almost as much as that time I went to the aerobic yoga class, but not quite). To me it is a wonder that I can actually do that. It is an outright miracle. Several years ago I was really sick and despaired of ever doing such a simple thing again.

So there I was yesterday, going up the stairs for the umpteenth time (yes, the building has an elevator, but I wanted to go up the stairs because I could) and my heart was singing. No, it wasn’t palpitations. It was sheer delight. As I reached the fifth floor, I nearly said to a lady who was heading down, Look, I can do this!.

I'll never know if I woul feel that way if I hadn't been so ill. All I know is that I do now. I can not go back to find out, since there is no going back.

I derive a great deal of enjoyment from the most common things.

A fresh peach, eaten on the balcony overlooking the ocean.

The smell of the early morning.

The feel of cool clean linens.

The sight of a four year old hosing off the sand from his bellyboard.

The sound of a groom and his best man hugging each other in silence, just before they head to the wedding.

Blogging and podcasting are two other things I truly enjoy. Blogging and podcasting enrich my life in many wonderful and surprising ways. If I weren't blogging I would have never witnessed this wonderful event yesterday, for instance.

Yes, I have a most privileged life filled with blessings.

Since I'm on vacation I have had a chance to ponder these things while I haven't been keeping up on the news as much as usual, but I have heard from friends who do. Several of these friends I have met because of blogging, and they are very well informed.

They are expecting that things are not going to get better; indeed, they are expecting things to get a lot worse for a long time. Several of those friends are preparing for the worst.

They certainly have good reason to.

• A glance at the so-called newspaper of record shows the complicity of the mainstream media with crackpot Communist dictators.
• Academia has debased itself into a morass of dogmatism and moral blindness to the point where 87 faculty members of a major university judge three young men as guilty by "reason" of their race and background.
• Unprincipled secular societies in the West can not ever begin to understand fundamentalist Islamists because they are unable to fill a void with a void.
• We are in an existential struggle and Democrat candidates are running on the premise that there is no war at all. Listen up, democrats, look at what really happened in the Middle East. There have been 8,638 terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001. It's not Methodists doing it.
• The leadership in Washington is faltering in ever-worse ways. Both parties are out to find the most disastrous way in the least time.
• Even when I'm not keeping up with the news I know that the US and Israel will be arming Fatah. Have they lost their minds? We are arming our enemies. The enemy of my enemy will turn against us. They have before and will again.

So while I'm enjoying everyday pleasures and posting about them, I too have the temptation of wanting to go back to the the age of 1990s blindness, where a corrupt president was lauded by the media and where terrorist attack after terrorist attack was ignored and pushed aside because it didn’t fit the script of Clintonian happiness so many want to return to today.

They think that by bringing back the same-old same-old and singing the new campaign song it's all going to be Happy days are here again
The skies above are clear again
So lets sing a song of cheer again
Happy days are here again,as if the words alone would make it so. It didn't happen in the 1930s. Then, as now, appeasement didn't work. But oh, those words would make anyone feel so good.

The problem is, words alone are not cutting it. Being blessed with a name does not alone make for a happy life as of itself. Ignoring an enemy set on destroying our very culture where I can write these words will not win a war.

There are many things I don't know, but there is one thing I know: there is no going back.

Don't close your eyes to reality.

Enjoy every moment you have.

And pray.



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Tuesday afternoon romance

I just witnessed a moment of sheer joy,

Kill Devil Hills beach, North Carolina, Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 4:55PM

technorati: weddings

It really is all about the fridge

The Tim Blair Fridge Project continues, and mine is featured as

The long-delayed sequel to Fridge begins with Fausta Wertz's stark food-cooling appliance

I like that. And I love the comments:
Paco:

Wow! That first one looks like something down at the Cryonics Institute (perhaps Ted Willams’ final resting place?).

Reese:

1. Fausta’s is stark. Probably stark raving.... I think overly neat desks and fridges are a sign of mental illness.

I post, you decide.

Moving right along, Andrea Harris, Administrator:

I fear Fausta’s fridge. And yet… I desire it. I want it to punish me. To pour cold shaved ice upon me until I scream for mercy. Or gin. (Yes, I've been out and about in the hot Florida sun today, why do you ask?)

The bare [firdge] truth is that I do love the stainless appliances with the white cabinets but the real reason the fridge doors are bare is that stainless steel doesn't hold magnets on its surface. Or much of anything else.

Update, Wednesday 20 June
Now, that's what I call a fridge!

France: Parliamentary elections second-round today - Sarko gets his mandate

UPDATED
SARKO GETS HIS MANDATE
35 million French go to the polls

All but one of Sunday's 467 races are two-way challenges between left and right. The other is a "triangular" between candidates from the UMP, PS and Modem.

I'll post on the results later today.

Update 3:15 PM EDT
Sarkozy party wins in French poll

President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party has swept the French parliamentary elections.

Preliminary projections give 319 to 329 seats to the right, 202 to 210 for the left.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right allies won a solid majority in Sunday's
parliamentary election, but failed to secure a widely-expected
landslide, television poll forecasts showed.

More at No Pasaran

Update, Monday 18 June
The Beeb says Sarkozy wins 'mandate for reform' while the WaPo claims Sarkozy, Allies Hold Majority, Lose Seats
Gains by Socialists Defy Predictions For French Runoff. No matter what, Sarko has now an absolute majority with 346 of the 577 parliamentary seats.



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Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all my visitors.

We're traveling this week so posting will be sporadic and will depend on what internet connection we have available. Email will be on hold for a while.

But you can still listen to the special Father's Day Podcast with Tony Woodlief and David Bernstein. Here's my post from last Friday,
In today's podcast i had the pleasure of talking to Tony Woodlief, the author of the wonderful pamphlet, Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad's Survival Guide


In the podcast, Tony tells us,

At first I made the mistake of trying to write the pamphlet I thought people would want instead of the one I really had inside, and that's always a mistake for me, and [my editors] said, just tell the stories about your children, and your own story because that really is more interesting and appealing.
... The stories of the children are really telling another story about my own upbringing and the struggle I had about trying to figure out how to grow up to be a man, not really having a father and home to look up to.

He tells all those stories and more. The point that comes across is,

"Real men come from wild fidgety loud hardheaded boys"

In today's Opinion Journal, Tony expands on that point,

The trick is not to squash the essence of boys, but to channel their natural wildness into manliness. And this is what keeps me awake at night, because it's going to take a miracle for someone like me, who grew up without meaningful male influence, who would be an embarrassment to Teddy Roosevelt, to raise three men. Along with learning what makes a good father, I face an added dilemma: How do I raise my sons to be better than their father?

What I'm discovering is that as I try to guide these ornery, wild-hearted little boys toward manhood, they are helping me become a better man, too. I love my sons without measure, and I want them to have the father I did not. As I stumble and sometimes fail, as I feign an interest in camping and construction and bugs, I become something better than I was.

In his blog, Tony links to Adam Bellow's article, The proxy patriarch
Adam Bellow had a famous father, but stepdad Papa Joe proved to be his true guiding light

Joe never tried to take my father's place or pressed himself on me in any way. But over time, he got into my life and into my heart. He did this basically just by being there in all the most important moments. It was Joe who attended my high-school theatre performances and graduation ceremonies. It was he who drove me out to college every fall and picked me up each spring, loading my bulky stereo and enormously heavy record collection into the family wagon.

Go read all of it.

And to all the dads and stepdads out there, happy Father's Day.

Update, Saturday 16 June: On Monday's podcast Gates of Vienna and Sigmund, Carl and Alfred will be talking about the Dancing Eurabians. Please join us at noon Eastern Time.

Click here for today's podcast.
You can order Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad's Survival Guide directly at the link.


----------------------------------------------
For more Father's Day fun, don't miss the Carnival of the Insanities,



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Embed in Iraq: Operation Alljah

Matt Sanchez continues to blog from Iraq: Operation Alljah, with photos. Go read it, since you won't find anything like this in the MSM

Paul Potts

Siggy, The Anchoress, The New Editor (via Larwyn), The Corner and Tim Blair are posting about him.

Here he is, singing,
Nessun Dorma:


and the one I really like, Time to Say Good-Bye, which he sang with his heart. I watched it a couple of times and cried each time (even when I don't like tenors!).


Give the guy some orthodontia, a few acting lessons, an Armani suit, and he's a star!


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Tony Woodlief on being a father

In today's podcast i had the pleasure of talking to Tony Woodlief, the author of the wonderful pamphlet, Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad's Survival Guide


In the podcast, Tony tells us,

At first I made the mistake of trying to write the pamphlet I thought people would want instead of the one I really had inside, and that's always a mistake for me, and [my editors] said, just tell the stories about your children, and your own story because that really is more interesting and appealing.
... The stories of the children are really telling another story about my own upbringing and the struggle I had about trying to figure out how to grow up to be a man, not really having a father and home to look up to.

He tells all those stories and more. The point that comes across is,

"Real men come from wild fidgety loud hardheaded boys"

In today's Opinion Journal, Tony expands on that point,

The trick is not to squash the essence of boys, but to channel their natural wildness into manliness. And this is what keeps me awake at night, because it's going to take a miracle for someone like me, who grew up without meaningful male influence, who would be an embarrassment to Teddy Roosevelt, to raise three men. Along with learning what makes a good father, I face an added dilemma: How do I raise my sons to be better than their father?

What I'm discovering is that as I try to guide these ornery, wild-hearted little boys toward manhood, they are helping me become a better man, too. I love my sons without measure, and I want them to have the father I did not. As I stumble and sometimes fail, as I feign an interest in camping and construction and bugs, I become something better than I was.

In his blog, Tony links to Adam Bellow's article, The proxy patriarch
Adam Bellow had a famous father, but stepdad Papa Joe proved to be his true guiding light

Joe never tried to take my father's place or pressed himself on me in any way. But over time, he got into my life and into my heart. He did this basically just by being there in all the most important moments. It was Joe who attended my high-school theatre performances and graduation ceremonies. It was he who drove me out to college every fall and picked me up each spring, loading my bulky stereo and enormously heavy record collection into the family wagon.

Go read all of it.

And to all the dads and stepdads out there, happy Father's Day.

Update, Saturday 16 June: On Monday's podcast Gates of Vienna and Sigmund, Carl and Alfred will be talking about the Dancing Eurabians. Please join us at noon Eastern Time.

Click here for today's podcast.
You can order Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad's Survival Guide directly at the link.


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Yes, Harry Reid, you said it.

After Harry Reid called Generals Pace and Petreus "incompetent", the Weekly Standard asks Did Reid Really Say That?

The answer is, clearly, yes.

Which is why Harry Reid's approval rating is 19% - as high as Scooter Libby's.

Dennis Miller lets it rip on Harry Reid (via Tigerhawk)

Amy Proctor notices that Harry Reid has no intention to listen to commanders on the ground no matter what.

However, the best post so far is Cassandra's, whose husband is in Iraq. Her post, Reid: Baghdad Troops "Out of Touch" with Gritty Reality of War is a masterpiece.

More at Fox News.

Banks are booming in Venezuela, says the NYTimes

Boom Times for Banks in Venezuela

Record public spending, fueled by high oil prices, is flooding this flourishing economy with cash. Government currency controls are trapping much of that money in the country. The extra cash, in turn, is increasing consumer spending. The banks are taking advantage of that by handing out scores of loans, advertising on flashy billboards across Caracas.

And with interest rates lower than the rate of inflation, "you would be stupid not to take out a loan right now," said Richard Francis, a director of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor's.

Here's why: If the 19% + rate of inflation is greater than the interest rate on your loan, you're better off using a loan for paying your current expenses; that is even more so if you can find the way around foreign currency controls and investing your money in financial assests in other currencies like the dollar and the euro.

Or, if you can't invest overseas, you'll indulge in discretionary spending: a Rolex, a Mercedes, a boob job:

In the meantime, customers have been taking advantage of the expansion in credit. Betzaida Guerra, 43, for example, said she discovered in a newspaper ad last year that a bank could finance an operation she had long wanted but could not afford. Within weeks, she secured credit for the nearly $5,000 surgery to enlarge her breasts.

"I was excited," said Ms. Guerra, an accountant from a Caracas suburb, who has nearly finished paying off her 12-month loan. "I saw the advertisement and thought, 'The way out has arrived.' "

The expanded use of credit is apparent in upper-middle-class Caracas neighborhoods like Altamira, where Gabriel Jimenez was getting ready to drive his new black Mercedes-Benz C200 sedan off the lot. Mr. Jiménez had bought the same model without financing in 2000, but this time he chose a 48-month loan to pay off most of the cost at 19 percent interest. The Venezuelan-owned Banesco approved his loan in only 72 hours.

"The process is really easy," said Mr. Jimenez, a divorce lawyer, before hopping into the driver's seat, smelling the new car’s scent and playing with its gadgets. "Before, interest rates were so high that it wasn’t worth it."

The problem is:

But bank directors say these advantages and current revenue are more than offset by government regulations that are making the sector more vulnerable. Banks are required to commit 32 percent of their loans to specific areas of the economy, including agriculture, housing and microcredit. Coming changes in the country's banking law may increase that percentage, said Ricardo Sanguino, president of the National Assembly's Finance Commission.

"Here, the norms change," Mr. Sarkissian said. "Every day they give us more news, a new regulation. That is constant."

The central bank, which has lost most of its autonomy from the government, announced in April that it would force private banks to double the amount of cash they deposit in their reserves, to 30 percent, in an effort to curb inflation. In the same week, Mr. Chavez ordered Fogade, the country's bank deposit protection fund, to transfer all its assets to the government, which would then distribute the cash to the poor.

Critics also say that Venezuela's inflation rate of more than 19 percent, the highest in Latin America, could force the government to raise interest rates. That, in turn, could make it more difficult for borrowers to pay back their loans.

There you have it folks:

• bank overregulation,
• currency controls,
• the seizure of the country's bank deposit protection fund by the government,
• the highest rate of inflation in Latin America
• and a large number of unsecured loans

Something tells me I'll be posting bad news about Venezuelan banks sometime in the future. There'll be a bust, and it won't have to do with Ms Guerra's.

The Devil's Excrement has an excellent post on the current state of the Venezuelan economy:

To put the deficit in the balance of payments in perspective, it is the largest of the last ten years, at a time when oil income is booming. What this means is that once again, the economy is being run on the back of the oil cycle and it is simply oil income which is providing growth, while internal variables continue to deteriorate. Nothing new on the mishandling of the Venezuelan economy, all previous recent crisis in ‘82, ‘89, ’94 and ‘02 were not that different. What is probably different this time around is that the huge imports are destroying both agricultural and industrial capacity, as local inflation and fear of controls have limited investment and made local production less competitive.

In the end, the balance of payment numbers indicate that devaluation is looming in the horizon, no matter what the Government says. Unfortunately, the more it is postponed, the larger it will be and the bigger the crisis facing the country as these adjustments always lead to a contraction of the economy and it takes time for people to recuperate their purchasing power and for the economy to settle.

In the separate universe of Venezuelan politics, government officials point to the booming banks as an indicator of a healthy economy, while at the same time Chavez urges his followers to show they are "good socialists" by sharing their riches with the poor, just as he does.

He's setting the example by donating the proceeds from his prize money from the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize. I kid you not.

In other Venezuelan news, Hugo's going ahead with the purchase of Russian subs. Whose engineers and technicians will handle them, one can only guess, but I expect Putin wouldn't sell them to Hugo unless he kept a finger in the pie, so to speak.

Fred Thompson has an article in Townhall, The Castro/Chavez Axis

Last week, when Hugo Chavez officially killed press freedoms, even a big part of Venezuela's far left seemed to realize that they’d created a monster. Unfortunately, it may be too late. He's already packed Venezuela's high court, legislature and military with his loyalists. Right now, he's operating without any check or balance.

During his rise, Venezuelans say that Chavez spent hours a day on the phone with Castro. Additionally, Castro sent thousands of his Communist apparatchiks to help transition Venezuela from a free county to a totalitarian state.

Without Cuban “help,” Venezuela wouldn’t be in the terrible mess it is today. Castro, after all, has been at this since the 1960's and he's given Chavez the benefit of his experience.

There's one big difference between Venezuela today and Cuba then, however. Castro needed Soviet aid to push his so-called "revolution." Chavez does not. One of his first moves was to bolster the Cuban dictatorship with oil subsidies -- a hundred thousand barrels a day to the tune of two billion dollars a year. One of the main factors preventing Cuba's transition towards democracy is Venezuelan oil wealth. On June 26, that wealth could increase significantly, as Chavez says he’ll nationalize the petroleum industry on that date.

The Venezuelan and Cuban axis of influence operates openly in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua. They meddled in America's free trade negotiations with Costa Rica and support anti-American candidates and movements all over Latin America. Chavez proved and he still believes that democracies can and should be overthrown by force when he led an unsuccessful coup attempt against the democratic Venezuelan government in 1992. After his pardon, he lived in Cuba for two years.

Today, he's building up Venezuela's military strength rapidly -- claiming it’s to prevent a U.S. invasion. Perhaps the biggest reason for concern is that Chavez has formed strong bonds with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

In this new era, you can't detect missile technologies with U-2 over-flights -- as did the Kennedy administration. No one seriously doubts, though, that Chavez would love to get his hands on nuclear weapons. We should also remember that Cuba sold Iran the means with which to develop biological weapons. Recall that the main suspect in the recent JFK Airport terrorism plot was arrested on his way to Caracas to get an Iranian passport.

America is facing a growing threat from Latin American totalitarianism and we need to call on those who are most familiar with it to lead the resistance. And the least we can do is free Radio and TV Marti and let them fight for freedom in the realm of ideas.

Update: Latinos4Thompson translated the article into Spanish.

The WaPo states that Venezuela is a tier-two country when it comes to human trafficking, which means that its approach to trafficking is deemed deficient but not enough to face immediate U.S. sanctions. Venezuela News and Views posts on the rising crime rate:

The kidnapping industry is flourishing, in particular in the Western area of the country. Now the problem is a calamity in Tachira and Zulia, but other states such as small Yaracuy are reporting monthly kidnappings (not to mention those that are not reported since quite often the families think that they’re is collusion between police and kidnapping gangs and prefer not to say anything and negotiate on their own). When kidnapping becomes almost an open air industry you know that respect for human life and condition is reaching new lows. What else can hide behind that? The Faddul brothers crime is a constant reminder that life in Venezuela is everyday cheaper and cheaper. People willing to collaborate on such activities soon will have no problem selling children and women into prostitution.

Mario Vargas Llosa realizes that Chavez is sinking Venezuela into bankruptcy.

And Vargas Llosa is right. Only that it's not just monetary.



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On time for Father's Day, tomorrow's podcast: Raising Wild Boys Into Men

Tony Woodlief, author of Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad's Survival Guide will be my podcast guest tomorrow at noon.

His pamphlet, the latest in The New Pamphleteers series, asks,

How does a hapless 21st century dad raise four young sons to manhood without taming their natural wildness? Modern society seems more interested in turning wild boys into mild boys, rather than harnessing their natural aggressiveness in traditional male virtues like protecting the innocent and seeking justice. Author Anthony Woodlief describes his near-obsessive quest to find books, toys, movies, and other resources that teach boys to develop their character without losing what he calls "The Cowboy Gene." In the course of that struggle, he finds out the true meaning of fatherhood.

I just finished reading and this is a must-buy for your dad. Tony writes about what it's like having three young boys and what it means to be a man, certainly one of the greater questions of our day.

His easygoing style and approach makes this a most delightful pamphlet to read, and to give. At only $4, you should buy one for everyone you know.

We'll be talking about it tomorrow at noon, and if you would like you can call in (646) 652-2639.

Join us!

Update, Friday, 15 June
Here's the link to the podcast
and follow-up post

Cross-posted at Heading Right



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