Roger Kimball waxes lyrical on a classical warrior and then compares him to the 21st Century's classic wimp. Rather entertaining if infinitely sad.
"Hercules. I have always liked the story of his 12 labors, especially the one about his cleansing the Augean stables. The rise of ISIS (ISIL, Islamic State, or whatever it is calling itself today) puts me in mind of another labor of Hercules, his confrontation with the Lernaean Hydra. As you’ll recall, the irritating thing about that menace, aside from its deadly halitosis and toxic blood, was that as soon as you lopped off one head two more sprouted in its place. Pedestrian efforts to kill the beast were therefore doomed to failure. It took a canny chap like Hercules to realize that if you wanted to get rid of it, something more than random air strikes were necessary. You need not only to cut of the many heads of the beast, you need also to cauterize the stumps instantly.
The West, alas, has yet to screw up its resolve in this matter. How could it? Just yesterday, the president of the United States — that would be Barack Hussein Obama — stood before the United Nations and heaped praise on Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, a Muslim cleric who has endorsed a fatwa calling for the murder of U.S. soldiers. Yep, Bin Bayyah is Obama’s candidate of the week for the prize of being a “moderate Muslim.” After all, he has had critical things to say about Islamic State and the charmingly named Boko Haram. Obama particularly liked this quotation: “We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace.” Nice, eh? But Bin Bayyah has said lots of other things. Not only has he supported murdering U.S. soldiers, he also, in 2009, issued a fatwa “barring all forms of normalization with Israel.” No matter. The White House under Barack Obama likes “moderate” Muslims like Bin Bayyah.
ISIS is just a junior league threat. Islam shares “common principles” with the West, “principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” Except infidels. And Jews. And white girls in Rotherham. And French tourists. And American journalists.
What we need now is a new Hercules. But what we have is Barack Hussein Obama. How I wish he would just resign and take up Donald Trump’s offer of free golf for life."
"Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.” C. S. Lewis
Sunday 28 September 2014
Thursday 25 September 2014
A BRAVE NEW POST-MODERN WORLD
The accompanying excerpt from an article by Mark Steyn illustrates the problems arising when we complacently allow a malignantly totalitarian, socialistic bureaucracy to emerge under 'progressive' notions of 'human rights' and whose ruling minions actually believe that they know better than the country's citizens how to behave, think and comport daily life. The rise of a ruling class; the 'educated(legal, humanities)/sophisticated(?) elite'.
We face a scenario in the West where some of these so-called 'elites' encourage the immigration (legal and otherwise) of parasitical foreigners whose behaviours and intentions appear not to desire integration but rather domination. The reasons for such self-defeating actions by these elites are not always transparent and often appear suicidal yet the trend continues. Unfortunately such behaviour indubitably encourages an opposing 'conservative' reaction wherein some contemplate the use of force and/or legal means to protect themselves and their families from harm, thus potentially justifying a crackdown on existing freedoms.
Marry these imperatives and we face a spiralling philosophical conundrum of brobdinagian proportions. It is a tightrope act of profound political intricacy to maintain civic freedoms whilst facing totalitarian inclinations from both within and without.
Right now I thank God that the man at the helm in Australia is trying to do just that. I fear however that some of his fellow travellers lack either the heart or the nous to support him for very much longer, and he is under fire from others in the community whose behaviour and philosophy's border on the outrageously treasonous. Much prayer and support is needed to maintain even a few of the community values we take for granted. A very cursory glance at history indicates that great civilisations die from the inside and usually the final collapse happens swiftly, in a figurative 'blink of an eye'.
I know, because the collapse of apartheid in South Africa happened so fast it surprised even the most optimistic and active amongst us. How much more therefore in a culture where everybody is hedonistically carrying on as if there is were no tomorrow...eating and drinking, buying and selling with little thought to what is happening under their very noses.
..................................................................................................
"In the Fifties, one in twenty members of the workforce needed government permission in order to do his job. Today, it's one in three.
That's tyrannous - which is bad enough, albeit not unique to America: The entire developed world has massively expanded the hyper-regulatory state. But only in America does the Department of Paperwork command lethal force:
Scary and increasingly familiar.
We face a scenario in the West where some of these so-called 'elites' encourage the immigration (legal and otherwise) of parasitical foreigners whose behaviours and intentions appear not to desire integration but rather domination. The reasons for such self-defeating actions by these elites are not always transparent and often appear suicidal yet the trend continues. Unfortunately such behaviour indubitably encourages an opposing 'conservative' reaction wherein some contemplate the use of force and/or legal means to protect themselves and their families from harm, thus potentially justifying a crackdown on existing freedoms.
Marry these imperatives and we face a spiralling philosophical conundrum of brobdinagian proportions. It is a tightrope act of profound political intricacy to maintain civic freedoms whilst facing totalitarian inclinations from both within and without.
Right now I thank God that the man at the helm in Australia is trying to do just that. I fear however that some of his fellow travellers lack either the heart or the nous to support him for very much longer, and he is under fire from others in the community whose behaviour and philosophy's border on the outrageously treasonous. Much prayer and support is needed to maintain even a few of the community values we take for granted. A very cursory glance at history indicates that great civilisations die from the inside and usually the final collapse happens swiftly, in a figurative 'blink of an eye'.
I know, because the collapse of apartheid in South Africa happened so fast it surprised even the most optimistic and active amongst us. How much more therefore in a culture where everybody is hedonistically carrying on as if there is were no tomorrow...eating and drinking, buying and selling with little thought to what is happening under their very noses.
..................................................................................................
"In the Fifties, one in twenty members of the workforce needed government permission in order to do his job. Today, it's one in three.
That's tyrannous - which is bad enough, albeit not unique to America: The entire developed world has massively expanded the hyper-regulatory state. But only in America does the Department of Paperwork command lethal force:
On August 19, 2010, two inspectors from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) visited the Strictly Skillz Barbershop in Orlando and found everything in order: All of the barbers working there were properly licensed, and all of the work stations complied with state regulations. Two days later, even though no violations had been discovered and even though the DBPR is authorized to conduct such inspections only once every two years, the inspectors called again, this time accompanied by "between eight and ten officers, including narcotics agents," who "rushed into" the barbershop "like [a] SWAT team." Some of them wore masks and bulletproof vests and had their guns drawn. Meanwhile, police cars blocked off the parking lot.What sort of lunatic handcuffs a barber in order to check his license is valid? The gauleiter in question is Inspector Amanda Fields of Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation - and, in a sane world, she'd be the one in handcuffs. But, as far as I can tell, she still has her job. Judge Rosenbaum's opinion for the US 11th Circuit is unusually vivid:
The officers ordered all the customers to leave, announcing that the shop was "closed down indefinitely." They handcuffed the owner, Brian Berry, and two barbers who rented chairs from him, then proceeded to search the work stations and a storage room. They demanded the barbers' driver's licenses and checked for outstanding warrants. One of the inspectors, Amanda Fields, asked for the same paperwork she had seen two days earlier, going through the motions of verifying (again) that the barbers were not cutting hair without a license (a second-degree misdemeanor). Finding no regulatory violations or contraband, the officers released Berry and the others after about an hour.
It was a scene right out of a Hollywood movie. On August 21, 2010, after more than a month of planning, teams from the Orange County Sheriff's Office descended on multiple target locations. They blocked the entrances and exits to the parking lots so no one could leave and no one could enter. With some team members dressed in ballistic vests and masks, and with guns drawn, the deputies rushed into their target destinations, handcuffed the stunned occupants — and demanded to see their barbers' licenses. The Orange County Sheriff's Office was providing muscle for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's administrative inspection of barbershops to discover licensing violations.I would doubt it. Amanda Fields and her chums feel no shame about what they did - which is the real problem. If a constable does not instinctively understand that there is something wrong - and, indeed, profoundly wicked - about a "license inspection" that involves handcuffing the barber, he's unlikely to be unduly disturbed by the possibility of a judicial slapdown four years hence, assuming that the rubes he's cuffing are savvy enough to take it that far. For a sense of the esprit of the Florida regulatory environment, consider the words of one officer to barber Reginald Trammon:
We first held nineteen years ago that conducting a run-of-the-mill administrative inspection as though it is a criminal raid, when no indication exists that safety will be threatened by the inspection, violates clearly established Fourth Amendment rights. See Swint v. City of Wadley , 51 F.3d 988 (11th Cir. 1995). We reaffirmed that principle in 2007 when we held that other deputies of the very same Orange County Sheriff's Office who participated in a similar warrantless criminal raid under the guise of executing an administrative inspection were not entitled to qualified immunity. See Bruce v. Beary , 498 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2007). Today,we repeat that same message once again. We hope that the third time will be the charm.
When Trammon argued to one of the officers that he had done nothing wrong, the officer responded, " It's a pretty big book, I'm pretty sure I can find something in here to take you to jail for."
Scary and increasingly familiar.
Wednesday 24 September 2014
SKANDAAL
How to completely discombobulate the head-tilting socialists....equate them with capitalism!
"Basically, hordes of hand-wringing social worker types spend their every waking hour whining about the appalling, pervasive misery of various groups of people, then advocate exactly the policies that will exacerbate or perpetuate this dysfunction. It's a real misery go round, no doubt about it. And it creeps me out big time that so many pinko parasites want it to continue for their own selfish reasons.
"Basically, hordes of hand-wringing social worker types spend their every waking hour whining about the appalling, pervasive misery of various groups of people, then advocate exactly the policies that will exacerbate or perpetuate this dysfunction. It's a real misery go round, no doubt about it. And it creeps me out big time that so many pinko parasites want it to continue for their own selfish reasons.
Same with drug companies, and the countless quacks who are in their
thrall."
From the poison pen of Matt Hayden the blogger not the
cricketer.
PROLES APART
In the following brief excerpt the country name could just as well be Australia because the same 'forces' are at work here. Many of the same 'type' of people who work against the society they inhabit are not particularly evil, merely what Lenin called 'useful idiots'. Some on the other hand are just plain evil and usually misanthropic to boot.
The former folk genuinely believe that we need a new civilisation and that our Judeo-Christian worldview is restrictive, moralistic and should be eradicated, the problem being that it is precisely the freedoms of the J/C worldview that allows such disparate visions to live in relative harmony. When and if the system that most of them envisage takes over they will almost certainly be the first to 'disappear' if history is any judge of the matter, and it usually is.
The problem with these fools is that they believe that freedom is an evolutionary by-product (Utopia) and we as a human race have 'evolved' to the point where we can determine our own destiny's aside from a (mythical), transcendent being and they are willing to risk a revolution to achieve those aims. Of course this applies mainly to the Western nations whose internal decadences have blinded them to most forms of reason, even the very 'reason' that they claim to represent.
Here then is the brief extract from an article by JR Dunn on dhimmitude and the multicultural hell that many in the UK live under:
"But keep in mind, the same forces are at work here as in the UK. PC and multiculturalism are just as powerful, the media and the educational establishment just as corrupt. The elite care no more here than they do in Blighty. Furthermore, our government is headed by a man with an obsession over the reputation of Islam that is inexplicable if we fully accept the assurances of his supporters. Official America has largely acquiesced to the Rotherham mindset.
It remains for the basic America to hold the line.
There are places in this country that would fold as quickly as Rotherham. There are Americans -- you can’t call them “citizens” -- who exist as proles, living from handout to handout, willing to follow orders and turn their backs. Some would give up their daughters as a dhimmi tax without even a whimper.
Rotherham is a warning sign. Corrupt government and ideology, it seems, possess the power to undermine the most basic instincts, the most deep-set relationships, at least among the weak. The people of Rotherham have joined the gute Deutsche, looking the other way as their neighbors vanish into the cattle cars, and the New Soviet Man, drowning his self-loathing in gallons of vodka as his country slides into terminal stasis."
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/09/the_dhimmis_of_rotherham.html#ixzz3EC3Sq9xl
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
The former folk genuinely believe that we need a new civilisation and that our Judeo-Christian worldview is restrictive, moralistic and should be eradicated, the problem being that it is precisely the freedoms of the J/C worldview that allows such disparate visions to live in relative harmony. When and if the system that most of them envisage takes over they will almost certainly be the first to 'disappear' if history is any judge of the matter, and it usually is.
The problem with these fools is that they believe that freedom is an evolutionary by-product (Utopia) and we as a human race have 'evolved' to the point where we can determine our own destiny's aside from a (mythical), transcendent being and they are willing to risk a revolution to achieve those aims. Of course this applies mainly to the Western nations whose internal decadences have blinded them to most forms of reason, even the very 'reason' that they claim to represent.
Here then is the brief extract from an article by JR Dunn on dhimmitude and the multicultural hell that many in the UK live under:
"But keep in mind, the same forces are at work here as in the UK. PC and multiculturalism are just as powerful, the media and the educational establishment just as corrupt. The elite care no more here than they do in Blighty. Furthermore, our government is headed by a man with an obsession over the reputation of Islam that is inexplicable if we fully accept the assurances of his supporters. Official America has largely acquiesced to the Rotherham mindset.
It remains for the basic America to hold the line.
There are places in this country that would fold as quickly as Rotherham. There are Americans -- you can’t call them “citizens” -- who exist as proles, living from handout to handout, willing to follow orders and turn their backs. Some would give up their daughters as a dhimmi tax without even a whimper.
Rotherham is a warning sign. Corrupt government and ideology, it seems, possess the power to undermine the most basic instincts, the most deep-set relationships, at least among the weak. The people of Rotherham have joined the gute Deutsche, looking the other way as their neighbors vanish into the cattle cars, and the New Soviet Man, drowning his self-loathing in gallons of vodka as his country slides into terminal stasis."
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/09/the_dhimmis_of_rotherham.html#ixzz3EC3Sq9xl
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Tuesday 23 September 2014
SLEIGHT OF HAND
AND THE COSMIC PRESTIDIGITATOR DEFLECTS THE ISSUES ONCE AGAIN
The Greenies/loonies/lefties are celebrating that Japan has been refused a hunting license for a few whales while at the same time a truly atrocious animal slaughter is being perpetrated in Africa and India.
These are issues associated with a particular worldview, a mythology and a culture!!!!!
A fact that should effectively dispel (but won't because ideology/tribal loyalties always trump facts in leftieland) the politically correct bromide which claims that all cultures are equal.....pleazzzze....it doesn't take an Einstein to illustrate the flaws in that argument but try stating that to a room full of PC troglodites at a cocktail party and you are sure to be:
a) so radically abused that you have no choice but to leave,
b) looked at in a way that makes you think that your fly is open with tackle dangling insouciantly in the wine....or......
c) you will be immediately served with a lawyers letter roughly scribbled on the party invitation and advising you that your rights to free speech have been suspended in accordance with;
the Human rights rule 401, sub-section 3766 of the 2014 Human Rights Committee of the United Nations on whom Kim Jong Un is the current serving chair (though currently off sick with suspected lactose intolerance) whereas his stand-in and acting chairperson is the exceptionally gracious, all-forgiving and most beneficent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:
Vultures Sep 19th, 2014 by NickM.
Yesterday I was at the Gauntlet Bird of Prey Centre in Cheshire.
I learned a lot. I learned how to handle a Harris Hawk called Pablo. I also learned that vultures are critically endangered. For a large animal they have had a decrease in numbers unparalleled in recorded history over the last few years.
Now this is a problem. Obviously it is a problem for the vultures but it is wider. As the primary garbolists of the Animal Kingdom they are a vital link in the ecosystem. They can eat almost anything. But in South Asia a generally banned (but of course freely available on the iffy market – consider the prohibition of heroin for example) cattle drug kills ‘em. They eat a bit of dead cow and they die. Now lots of people don’t like vultures but things that clear the land of dead things help prevent disease in other animals including humans.
Now that is bad in Asia but the situation in Africa is appalling. This is how it goes. Our fun-loving criminal mates, the Russian Mafia, have taken a strong interest in rhino and elephant poaching. Now obviously they take the horns and tusks and leave the rest. Alas, due to the size of the game reserves of Africa, the only way the rangers patrolling them are likely to get a chance of catching the poachers is by spotting the vultures hovering over the remains. Now, if you are the sort of scumbag who will unload a clip of 7.62mm into a rhino to flog the horn to the Chinese (it is apparently worth four times it’s mass in Au) you are pretty ruthless and obviously you don’t want to get caught. Note that the park rangers pack some heat. You have to against Russian Mafia sponsored types with AK-47s.
So, to reduce the chance of being caught the Russian Mafia has been systematically eradicating not just their prey animals but the vultures. They have been doing this by lacing the corpses of the dead rhinos and elephants with cyanide.
Vultures have essentially no sense of smell or taste. This enables them to eat things that would make you and me reflexively vomit profusely. It is their strength in the whole chain of life and also their weakness when it comes to Indians drugging cattle (apparently this is a Hindu thing – the beef is not good for people to eat but the milk is OK and of course Hindus don’t tend to eat beef) or the Russian Mafia deliberately poisoning vultures.
The truly shocking thing. Well, there are a number. Deliberately killing a truly useful animal (with all the knock-on effects) is dreadful. And they are of course magnificent and very friendly birds. And as you can imagine (if you are regular you will know) that as a fanatic about fighter ‘planes I have a soft spot for our pre-Wright Bros. winged warriors. But it ain’t just my soft spot that is agitated here. The ecosytematic damage is extreme and via disease it also kills people. Imagine how healthy you would be if no-one picked up the bins? You’d be pegging it from dysentery and cholera. And vultures do this service for free in some of the poorest parts of the World.
But they are deliberately being killed by the Russian Mafia to sell the Chinese stuff that should be banned. Well it is banned but has that ever helped anything? I mean US prohibition only boosted the Canadian whiskey industry. How were the Feds to patrol a 3,000 mile border? How does a Kenyan park ranger patrol an enormous game reserve without spotting the circling vulures?
I am not saying theses vile trades ought to be legalized but very clearly the illegality has not helped.
I do not know what the solution is. How could I? But shooting some of the buggers might help. I mean they won’t do it again will they?
I’m only saying this because I suspect many readers will not know about it. Because vultures have an undeserved bad-rep, because I just love everything that flies because I just do and always have and perhaps when it is properly explained you begin to understand how complex ecosystems are not just to the critters but to us. I don’t want to see a rhino being shot and a vulture being poisoned so some Mafia oligarch can flog the horn to a Chinese plutocrat. I really don’t want to see this so completely innocent Africans die from diseases that nobody in Europe ever gets.
I’m quite serious here. If you support one animal charity this year – make it the vulture.
Apparently, and the guy who showed of his vultures had done a lot of work in Africa, at least one Russian Mafia boss has a plan. He wishes to stockpile as much rhino horn and elephant tusk as possible before eradicating both species entirely so he gets to corner the entire market. The destruction of the vultures is merely part of this insane (but lucrative) scheme.
That is what it is about. Extinction for temporary profit done by very evil people.
..........................................................................................................................................
While our comrade passionatas are off whipping up emotions on matters actually under control and relatively tiny in the larger scheme of things the really serious issues are going unnoticed. Just like how the anthropogenic global warming circus has distracted people and diverted money away from the many genuine ecological problems. Read Patrick Moore about that one.
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/07/09/greenpeace-co-founder-dr-patrick-moore-i-fear-a-global-cooling-rips-obama-for-hollow-climate-claims/
I learned a lot. I learned how to handle a Harris Hawk called Pablo. I also learned that vultures are critically endangered. For a large animal they have had a decrease in numbers unparalleled in recorded history over the last few years.
Now this is a problem. Obviously it is a problem for the vultures but it is wider. As the primary garbolists of the Animal Kingdom they are a vital link in the ecosystem. They can eat almost anything. But in South Asia a generally banned (but of course freely available on the iffy market – consider the prohibition of heroin for example) cattle drug kills ‘em. They eat a bit of dead cow and they die. Now lots of people don’t like vultures but things that clear the land of dead things help prevent disease in other animals including humans.
Now that is bad in Asia but the situation in Africa is appalling. This is how it goes. Our fun-loving criminal mates, the Russian Mafia, have taken a strong interest in rhino and elephant poaching. Now obviously they take the horns and tusks and leave the rest. Alas, due to the size of the game reserves of Africa, the only way the rangers patrolling them are likely to get a chance of catching the poachers is by spotting the vultures hovering over the remains. Now, if you are the sort of scumbag who will unload a clip of 7.62mm into a rhino to flog the horn to the Chinese (it is apparently worth four times it’s mass in Au) you are pretty ruthless and obviously you don’t want to get caught. Note that the park rangers pack some heat. You have to against Russian Mafia sponsored types with AK-47s.
So, to reduce the chance of being caught the Russian Mafia has been systematically eradicating not just their prey animals but the vultures. They have been doing this by lacing the corpses of the dead rhinos and elephants with cyanide.
Vultures have essentially no sense of smell or taste. This enables them to eat things that would make you and me reflexively vomit profusely. It is their strength in the whole chain of life and also their weakness when it comes to Indians drugging cattle (apparently this is a Hindu thing – the beef is not good for people to eat but the milk is OK and of course Hindus don’t tend to eat beef) or the Russian Mafia deliberately poisoning vultures.
The truly shocking thing. Well, there are a number. Deliberately killing a truly useful animal (with all the knock-on effects) is dreadful. And they are of course magnificent and very friendly birds. And as you can imagine (if you are regular you will know) that as a fanatic about fighter ‘planes I have a soft spot for our pre-Wright Bros. winged warriors. But it ain’t just my soft spot that is agitated here. The ecosytematic damage is extreme and via disease it also kills people. Imagine how healthy you would be if no-one picked up the bins? You’d be pegging it from dysentery and cholera. And vultures do this service for free in some of the poorest parts of the World.
But they are deliberately being killed by the Russian Mafia to sell the Chinese stuff that should be banned. Well it is banned but has that ever helped anything? I mean US prohibition only boosted the Canadian whiskey industry. How were the Feds to patrol a 3,000 mile border? How does a Kenyan park ranger patrol an enormous game reserve without spotting the circling vulures?
I am not saying theses vile trades ought to be legalized but very clearly the illegality has not helped.
I do not know what the solution is. How could I? But shooting some of the buggers might help. I mean they won’t do it again will they?
I’m only saying this because I suspect many readers will not know about it. Because vultures have an undeserved bad-rep, because I just love everything that flies because I just do and always have and perhaps when it is properly explained you begin to understand how complex ecosystems are not just to the critters but to us. I don’t want to see a rhino being shot and a vulture being poisoned so some Mafia oligarch can flog the horn to a Chinese plutocrat. I really don’t want to see this so completely innocent Africans die from diseases that nobody in Europe ever gets.
I’m quite serious here. If you support one animal charity this year – make it the vulture.
Apparently, and the guy who showed of his vultures had done a lot of work in Africa, at least one Russian Mafia boss has a plan. He wishes to stockpile as much rhino horn and elephant tusk as possible before eradicating both species entirely so he gets to corner the entire market. The destruction of the vultures is merely part of this insane (but lucrative) scheme.
That is what it is about. Extinction for temporary profit done by very evil people.
..........................................................................................................................................
While our comrade passionatas are off whipping up emotions on matters actually under control and relatively tiny in the larger scheme of things the really serious issues are going unnoticed. Just like how the anthropogenic global warming circus has distracted people and diverted money away from the many genuine ecological problems. Read Patrick Moore about that one.
http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/07/09/greenpeace-co-founder-dr-patrick-moore-i-fear-a-global-cooling-rips-obama-for-hollow-climate-claims/
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