Drying up the trough

One of the recurring themes during the Primary season (and one which will continue to resurface during the general campaign) is the impassioned pleas for health care coverage for everyone.  Universal health care will solve one of the major problems for the poor, namely the accessibility of doctors and treatments.

 

Again and again, the question is raised – rarely answered – of how a program of this nature is to be paid for.  Reason indicates decreased government spending on other programs in order to pay for this one, along with an increase in taxes just to make sure it gets off on a steady footing.

 

But what happens when the monetary well runs dry?  How many governments in the West are operating on a budget surplus, or even at break-even? 

 

We know that OUR government has been in the red for years, and that our debts are unfathomably enormous.  Perhaps we can start a new entitlement for health care…but when the tax base shrinks (and it will), what then?  Cuts, of course.  Cuts like this one, in the UK, which has had a socialized medicine program for decades.

 

A Down’s syndrome man and Special Olympics champion who has been working for free for years is now being charged a fee to wash councillors’ dishes.

 

Virgil Taylor has been helping to wash up, wipe tables and set up trolleys in a restaurant used by town hall staff for 17 years as part of subsidised adult care services.

 

Every week Mr Taylor - who won a gold medal at the Special Olympics in Glasgow in 2005 - has attended 10 sessions run by the William Knowles Centre in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

 

But now savage cuts have ended the subsidies and the 34-year-old will have to pay £2.50 per session for the ‘privilege’ of cleaning up after councillors.

 

We already have trillions of dollars of debt that we have no reasonable way of repaying.  And one candidate in particular has as part of his platform a hugely expensive socialized healthcare idea (on top of the $850 billion he wants to give away overseas).  What ever happened to fiscal responsibility?  And what happens to those like Mr. Taylor who have depended on their subsidies for subsistence when those payments have to stop?

 

The creditors aren’t going to wait forever.  The piper must be paid.  The deeper the debt hole gets, the more precarious our economy and security get.  How long before the oil-rich countries in the ME buy out America’s infrastructure because we no longer have the means to support it ourselves?

 

Who will be the big dog then?  And what will be the fate of the weakened, deposed alpha-male?

 

The supremacy of the Islamic mind

From an article at Front Page, based on an Al Jazeera program, provided by MEMRI, below is part of the exchange between Syrian author Nidhal Na’isa and Egyptian cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Khouli. I post it to highlight what I’ve noticed as a common thread among Islamists; that is, that the beneficence and wonder of Islam (currently and historically) is beyond question…and that if you do even remotely question it, then you’re blind idiot, period. That a person (ostensibly) of intelligence can close his mind SO TIGHTLY against any possibility of his being mistaken is a frightening, and yet humorous, phenomenon.

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: “When they [Muslims – GdB] entered Andalusia, they brought Europe out of the darkness of the Middle Ages. [First crazy statement – as noted by Fjordman here, much of the science of ancient Greece was copied, translated, and then ignored by the Muslims. If they brought knowledge to Europe via Spain, it was entirely by accident.] They established a civilization for which the Spaniards still long today. [Only the Muslim Spaniards.] Spain found itself under the burden of the fanaticism and racism of Ferdinand, Pope Urban, and others, and so the Spaniards lament the loss of that heritage. [What is the basis for this statement?] The Jews who immigrated [sic] and founded America [Jews founded America? That’s not what this says] excelled in comparison with the other immigrants, because they stole the heritage of the Muslims.” [I would be very interested to find out what he thinks Jews stole from Muslims. Jewish traditions still in practice today obviously predate Islam]

Here’s where it starts to get good…where the esteemed sheikh starts losing it.

“In Andalusia, which you say, the Muslims conquered by the sword, they left a civilization unparalleled throughout history to this day. [Again, no facts, just broad statements] Western civilization is not really a civilization, brother.”

Nidhal Na’isa: “Western civilization is not really a civilization?”

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: “You listen to me! You listen to me!” [I get the feeling that this guy’s not accustomed to being questioned]

This part’s the best.

Nidhal Na’isa: “Exactly. You are talking about Andalusia. Dr. Ibrahim, my dear friend, you must open your mind and enlighten yourself.”

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: “Enlighten yourself! I enlighten you, not the other way around, boy!”

Nidhal Na’isa: “You are a boy yourself. You listen to me.”

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: “You are a boy compared to me.”

Nidhal Na’isa: “And you’re a boy compared to me too.”

[I’m not sure I like the tactic Na’isa is using here, simply returning the same insult back to the issuer. It’s probably not very effective, other than severely for irritating the belligerent party]

Interviewer: “Please, do not…”

Nidhal Na’isa: “I just want to open his mind.”

Ibrahim Al-Khoulib: “I need my mind opened?! You have the brains of an ant, compared to me.”

A refreshingly mature dialog, don’t you think?

 

For the Record

Short, but important…from Jihad Watch.

I [Robert Spencer] was just on the Laura Ingraham Show with Dr. Esam Omeish, President of the Muslim American Society. Toward the end of the show, after I had quoted (with citations) a few Qur’an verses, Ingraham asked Omeish, “Is Spencer misquoting the Qur’an?” Omeish said no, I wasn’t.

Now, this is extraordinary, especially coming on the heels of CAIR’s false and defamatory charges against me. Will Ibrahim Hooper call Omeish in for a friendly heart-to-heart? Better yet, will American Muslim advocacy groups actually begin to formulate new ways for Muslims to understand the passages I quoted and others, so as to stymie jihadist use of these passages to gain recruits and justify their actions among peaceful Muslims?

Any reader should note that he is not advocating the abolition of Islam, or demonizing all Muslims.  He may believe (as I do) that they’re misguided, but they’re not evil.  Others may disagree with me, but the problem with Islam today isn’t the average ordinary pious Muslims, it’s the jihadists and Sharia supremacists.  They may be few (arguable), but they’re the most vocal and visible - if anyone is actually giving Islam a bad name, it’s them.

Audio file of the interchange with Spencer, Ingraham, and Omeish here.

More on that book

This time from the estimable Andrew Bostom, posted at American Thinker.

—————————————————————————————–

This past December, 2006, a British radiologist, and the executive director of the Sword Swallowers Association International published a fascinating survey which evaluated, “information on the practices and associated ill-effects of sword swallowing.” The respondent sword swallowers typically required extended daily practice for months or years to appropriately desensitize their gag reflex,

…sometimes by repeatedly putting fingers down the throat, but other objects are used including spoons, paint brushes, knitting needles, and plastic tubes before the swallower commonly progresses to a bent wire coat hanger. The performer must then learn to align a sword with the upper esophageal sphincter with the neck hyper-extended.

Not surprisingly, such “desensitization” training does not spare sword swallowers from the predictable hazards of their chosen profession, including serious morbidities – perforations of the pharynx or esophagus and associated neck abscess or aspiration, pneumothorax, pleurisy, pericarditis, and intestinal bleeding, ranging from melena (frankly bloody stools), to blood-transfusion-requiring hematemesis (vomiting blood)-and even death.

Robert Spencer’s sobering new book, Religion of Peace? reveals how the prevailing multicultural orthodoxy in the West — rooted in self-hatred, uncritical, blanket pacifism, and complacency — negates the profound differences between Judeo-Christian and Islamic civilization, obfuscating the existential threat posed by Islam’s enduring, central institution: the jihad. This corrosive mentality is disseminated by the avatars of immoral equivalence, “elite” sword swallowers for jihadism who have foisted their own self-destructive desensitization to this genocidal institution upon a general public, sadly ill-informed about Islamic doctrine and history.

Book Review?

Today at townhall., an irreverent look at Robert Spencer’s new book “Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t” and at those who will continue to refuse to believe what’s in front of their eyes – probably until it comes swinging toward their necks.  

Nod:  JihadWatch

Christianity Sucks and Islam is Awesome?

By Doug Giles

Man, don’t cha love how mainstream media and their soft-brain disciples make Christians out to be fish-stickered, bug-eyed equals to incensed Islam? If you were to accept as true what some atheists, secularists and prattling gay activists say about Christians, you’d think the church is chomping at the bit to chop off some heads of unbelievers, glory to Gawd!

Yep, if you were to believe the barf belched out by the BS brokers on the Left, you’d stagger away Kool Aid drunk with the belief that there is little disparity between conservative Christians and militant Muslims.

As a matter of fact, you probably would be bamboozled into believing that Islam is a peaceful, Little House on the Prairie religion being temporarily hijacked by jihadist renegades, and Christianity . . . Christianity is the real charity-vacant, vicious cult that’s vying for the opportunity to seize the whip and whip us good.

Yes, the postmodern reality stylists are working their butts off trying to convince us TV-addled cattle of two primary things: 1) violent jihad is not based on the Koran and 2) All conservative Christians are theocrats ready to burn Sully Erna at the stake, stone Jay Alexander in a nearby gravel pit and governmentally ramrod Christianity down everyone’s pie hole.

Humor

From American Thinker, no less.

From the Book of Double-Think (updated)

Steve Kogan
1. The left says that the president has shredded the Constitution and that it is is a living document.2. It equates Bush with Hitler and attacks his support of Israel.3. It bridles at the charge that it is antisemitic and singles out the world¹s only Jewish state for universal condemnation.

4. It accuses the president of going into Iraq for oil, and it also accuses him of destroying the infrastructure of Iraq.

5. It says that corporations are evil, and it relies on their inventions and products like everyone else.

6. It calls America a racist, genocidal state, and it attacks the administration for squandering our international reputation.

7. It says that the debate about global warming is over and refuses to debate challengers.

8. The left is for women¹s rights and for cultures that see things differently.

9. It says that the term “colored people” is racist and that we should say “people of color” instead.

10. It says that globalization is bad and that international cooperation is good.

11. Whenever President Bush invokes the memory of 9/11, the left calls him a fear monger, and it also insists that a catastrophic climate change is coming soon.

12. It says that the president is out of touch with reality and that he conspires with evil masterminds to grab as much imperial power as he can.

13. The left sees portents of a Christian theocracy behind every Christmas creche, and it will call you a bigot twice over if you say that jihadists are Islamic kamikaze killers.

14. It says that we cannot win in Iraq but that we can destroy the planet.

Update: Jim Speers has more:

15. The left wants to teach students (all grade levels, including university) biological science without application of scientific method as it relates to the study of the origins of life.  

16. The left wants to stop us from promoting abstinence as the ideal means of birth and STD control, but mandates forcing tobacco companies to advertise non-smoking among teens because it is sure to result in fewer smokers. 

17. The left wants us to surrender in the war against terror in Iraq because it is a long and costly venture, but also wants us to keep on fighting the war on poverty which has so far cost trillions ($12 trillion, according to some estimates) and is now in its 5^th decade. 

18. The left wants us to believe the same government that does such a good job running veterans’ healthcare, public education, social security, and immigration is going to really do a great job running a nationalized healthcare system.

Nothing to say today…

Nah, just kidding.  Since I don’t have TIME to say much today, I’m going to post something that Amil Imani sent me.  It’s also at his site. 

It’s difficult to quantify the value of such insight and analysis coming from a Muslim.  Thanks again, Mr. Imani.

——————————————————————————————–

A Bridge to “Moderate” Islam Is In Fact a Road to HellBy: Amil Imani‘Islam is a religion of peace and the great majority of Muslims are not party to any plans and actions of the radicals’- so claim academic pundits, leftist journalists, and hired Islamic apologists. The incantation of these “authorities” is the lullaby that puts the people into a sleep of complacency.

Complacency and appeasement on the part of the free world and those well-meaning, non-practicing Muslims, can only serve Islam. There is no chance for co-existence with Islam. All one needs to know is to see what is happening in Islamic countries. That is exactly what is in store for the presently free people of the world if Islam is not held in check.

The average free person, who is busy with all manner of demands on his time and resources, would hardly want to worry about the very real threat which mainstream Islam poses to his life and to his future. It is so much easier to accept the claims of authorities who assure us not to worry; ‘it’s just a tiny minority of extremists’, and ‘soon the great majority of “moderates” will triumph over the crazy zealots’.  So we lull ourselves back to the comfort of our pretenses, serene in knowing that the “experts” have it all under control.

Wait!  Aren’t these the same experts who told us Hitler could not possibly be crazy enough to attack Russia or Britain?  Aren’t these the same “experts” who tried to cover up Mao Tse Tung’s reign of terror in China, or Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia?  Isn’t this the same “expertise” that assured us in the 1970’s that inflation was good, and could never be accompanied by recession? 

Disproportionate Response

Most people are aware of the ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza, mostly into Sderot.  Today in Ynet News, they report that some of the citizenry is responding with projectiles of their own.

 Ruthless, I tell ya…those Jooozzzz. 

A number of Israelis from the Tel Aviv vicinity drove south and fired improvised missiles towards Gaza, in an effort to raise awareness of the difficult situation in Sderot.

The group used a projectile-launcher built by Yahav Michaeli - a stunts and pyrotechnics expert - to lob organic eggs and vegetables towards Beit Hanoun.

[...]The group had brought with them organic eggs, corn, mango, tomatoes and other vegetables - much of it bought in Sderot - to launch at the Palestinians.

Mr. Spencer’s Powerful Pen

I hate to beat a dead horse – it tires me out and gets me nowhere.  I don’t think I’m doing that here (with this post), as the travesty of the charges of felonious hate crimes against the infamous Qur’an-flusher is still current and is still about the scariest thing happening in the U.S. right now. This is copied from Jihad Watch – please read the entire erudite thing. 

A 23-year-old student at Pace University, Stanislav Shmulevich, was arrested Friday and charged with two felony counts of Criminal Mischief in the Fourth Degree as a Hate Crime. Numerous analysts have been quick to recognize the cruel irony of these charges. Mark Steyn quipped that instead of flushing the Qur’an, “obviously Mr Shmulevich should have submerged it in his own urine, applied for an NEA grant and offered it to the Whitney Biennial. But to that Michelle Malkin responded with the grim truth: “Actually, no. The NEA would have turned Shmulevich in to the police, too. Now, if he had submerged a Bible in urine or coated a Torah in cow dung and submitted it for a federal grant, he’d be sitting pretty–and facing rave New York Times editorials instead of time behind bars.”

 […] 

As mad as the felony charges against him are, Stanislav Shmulevich most likely is not the end of anything, but rather the beginning. We are unlikely as a society to become a place in which disrespect or even hatred of Christianity comes to be regarded as just as dangerous to the social order as disrespect or hatred of Islam, and we are just as unlikely to return to a saner time when one could not be prosecuted for disliking someone else’s beliefs (in which case Shmulevich would have to pay for the books, and for any necessary plumbing work, but that would be all). We have become a society of sacrosanct protected classes whose victim status places them above all criticism. Those individuals and groups who do not enjoy victim status can be shredded with impunity in the public square, and the shredders are hailed as “courageous,” “iconoclastic,” and “irreverent.” But if the protected group is criticized in any way, we are told that the criticism creates a climate of “hostility” and “hate” that can culminate in yet more victimization. 

[…] 

Muslims are not being lynched, or persecuted, or discriminated against in America. Time and time again breathless media-amplified fears of “backlash” against Muslims prove unfounded, and Muslims continue to practice their faith here with more freedom than they enjoy in most of the countries from which they came. That’s why Stanislav Shmulevich and his flushed Qur’ans are a windfall for American Muslim advocacy groups: he has now validated the victim status they so doggedly claim. And until the American public discourse can dare to break away from the protected-victim model and its subtext of white Christian guilt, these groups will experience many more such windfalls, whenever someone acts obnoxiously or boorishly toward any Muslim or Islamic object. The American public square today simply has no apparatus for dealing with the possibility that the protected victims might be perpetrating evil themselves. The cognitive dissonance regarding Muslims since 9/11 is ultimately what has given birth to 9/11 conspiracy theories, Reichstag fire analogies, and the like. Muslims can’t be responsible, because they are non-white, non-Christian, non-Westerners. It must be something we have done.

Update to an Old Joke

This might be funny if I didn’t think it were actually possible…. 

The Teaching of Math 1950-2027

Last week I purchased a burger at Burger King for $1.58. The counter girl took my $2 and I was digging for my change when I pulled 8 cents from my pocket and gave it to her. She stood there, holding the nickel and 3 pennies, while looking at the screen on her register. I sensed her discomfort and tried to tell her to just give me two quarters, but she hailed the manager for help . While he tried to explain the transaction to her, she stood there and cried.

Why do I tell you this?

Answer: Because of the evolution in teaching math since the 1950’s

1. Teaching Math In 1950……..

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.

What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1960……..

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80.

What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1970……..

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80.

Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1980……..

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20.

Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Math In 1990……..

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20.

What do you think of this way of making a living?

Topic for class participation after answering the question:

How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers. )

6. Teaching Math In 2007…………..

Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80. Cuanto dinero ha hecho?

7. Teaching Math In 2027………….. (my addition)

يهودية أنقص غاية جميل لأنّ هو يكون أنانيّة وغيرمراع
[A Jew cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate]

Keith Ellison watch

I’m not from Minnesota. 

Minnesota seems to be a testing ground for Islamists…with the Flying Imams, the recalcitrant cabbies, and fed-funded footbaths.  It can’t be a coincidence that one of their (Minnesotans) U.S. Representatives, one Keith Ellison, is Muslim.

Cong. Ellison recently made a speech in which he intimated that President Bush was much more Hitler-like than most of us would think. 

Robert Spencer has a reaction to that blather, at Hot Air.

Some things Mo didn’t know…

Can you say Sweet Irony?

Women in hijabs ‘need sunlight or risk illness’

(Nod: Dhimmi Watch)

The picture accompanying this story actually depicts a woman in a niqab, not a hijab.


From the Evening Standard:

Muslim women who wear the hijab are at risk of serious illness because they do not get enough sun, doctors have warned.


They said an alarming number of women who cover their skin are suffering bone deficiencies over a lack of vitamin D.


Most of the body’s vitamin D - which prevents rickets - is obtained through sunlight acting on the skin. Only a little comes from food.


Doctors told a London conference today that people with dark pigment are at risk because of “cultural reasons” and because they are less efficient at producing the vitamin.


The bone disorder rickets has now broken out in young Muslim children as babies are not getting enough calcium from mothers’ breast milk.


The National Health Service is launching a campaign aimed at Muslim women, particularly Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Somalis, to encourage them to increase their vitamin D intake.