Life Is Hard...

U.N. Proclaims Itself "Illegitimate"

AP News Wire
NEW YORK - In a surprise move today, Secretary General Kofi Annan announced that the United Nations will no longer pretend to be a legitimate arbiter for justice and human rights.

"The time for deception is at an end. With our decision to re-elect Cuba to the U.N. Human Rights Commission only three weeks after Castro sentenced dozens of journalists and librarians to decades in prison, we have sent a clear message to the world that we don't give two figs about Freedom of Speech or the Rule of Law", said Mr. Annan.

Mr. Annan also unveiled his new "Protect the Guilty, Screw the Innocent" initiative, and urged member states to place more emphasis on prosecuting key figures in the United States for War Crimes, while continuing the "Oil for Food" program indefinitely. Asked about the persistent rumors of fraud and abuse of funds within the U.N. administered program, Mr. Annan responded, "I'm sure that no evidence of wrong-doing will be found, especially once we get shredders no. 3 and 4 back from the repair shop."

Tax and Taxability

Ever get tired of listening to lovable but misguided friends as they ramble on about how the Evil Republicans are going to drive up deficits by lowering tax rates? Yeah, me too. My advice is, just ask them this simple question: why not increase the income tax rate to one-hundred percent? With all of that tax revenue, we should be able to pay off the National Debt in a single year, right?

Heh.

Enter the famous Laffer Curve, named after Arthur Laffer, which demonstrates that government revenue becomes vanishingly small as tax rates near 0% and 100%. Conclusion: somewhere in between these two extremes is a tax rate which will maximize government revenue.

Of course, the Laffer Curve is more of a mental exercise than a definitive model for developing tax policy. Fortunately, Arthur has also contributed the following common sense questions, which we should all ask ourselves when we think about raising or lowering tax rates.

Is the existing rate very high? Can it be assumed that it has been holding back economic activity?

Are you are willing to wait for the incentive effects of lower rates to take effect?

Is there a way that people can actually change their behavior to take advantage of the tax-cut? Can they work harder, invest more, and so on?

Is there presently a lot of tax-evasion activity? Is the cost of that evasion high enough so that people will stop evading when the tax is cut?

Is there some other tax mechanism that could receive the additional revenues? For instance, if capital-gains taxes were cut would higher workers' wages cause income-tax revenues to go up?

And finally, a thought of my own:

Is the current economy strong enough to withstand a raise in tax rates?

Posted by crandal at 10:52 PM

NOW Is Apparently Not The Right Time To Talk About It

The Washington headquarters of NOW couldn't run from the flames fast enough as local chapter president Mavra Stark chose to self-immolate earlier this week. The furor was started when Mavra vocalized what the rest of the NOW leadership had been quietly thinking: their strong opposition to the double-murder charges handed down in the infamous Laci Peterson case.

NOW chose not to use the free press as an opportunity to clarify their position on fetal homicide statutes, which exist in over 20 states.

"I was thinking out loud," said Stark, who had mused on Saturday that the double-murder charge could provide ammunition to the pro-life lobby.

Indeed you were, Ms. Stark. Indeed you were.

Let Their People Go

Members of the Left Coast establishment are calling for secession from the Union!

We, the people of the Bay Area, need to leave the United States. We are held prisoner by a foreign power, colonized by an alien civilization. We require cultural and social self-determination. We demand, in short, a declaration of independence -- and our own nation.

And I say, good riddance. The next time they get socked with an earthquake, I'll feel better in the knowledge that my tax dollars won't be wasted on rebuilding a city in the middle of a deadly fault.

Airline Airheads

Yet more evidence that what the failing airlines need is better managment, not a tax-payer funded government bail-out: Southwest Airlines posted its 48th consecutive quarterly profit. I wonder, is anyone at United and American paying attention?

What Gets Played On The Radio When It's Late At Night

Have you ever heard a Jazz Recitative of Psalm 150, complete with a muted trumpet, stringed instruments, drums and a soprano solo? Well until tonight, neither had I. Would you believe that multiple Jazz Bands have recorded Psalm 150?   I Believe.

Peter Kascak, Call Your Office!

After spending a month ingratiating himself with Saddam's entourage, Soler convinced the Iraqis to grant him camera time with His Excellency's inner circle. His film shows Saddam to be a lunatic, devoid of morality or humanity. It captures images of Saddam's unique style of fishing-   hurling grenades into a pond and then sending aides to retrieve the kill.

13 Point Plan

According to this, "Free Iraqis have drawn up a 13-point plan to rebuild their country following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find a list of the 13 points!! I'll keep you posted.

Rodney Dangerous

Heh.

Rodney King [Yes, THAT Rodney King. -ed] was spotted Sunday by a Rialto police officer, who said King was weaving through traffic in his 2003 Ford Expedition and traveling about 100 mph when he slammed into a utility pole, a chain-link fence and then the home, police said. No one in the home was injured.

CNN: the Collaboration News Network

The more I think about the CNN debacle, the more infuriated I get. Since CNN has been playing word games with their coverage of Iraq, I've decided to play a little game of my own:

Synonyms:
CNN = Greed
CNN = Duplicitous
CNN = Hypocrites
CNN = Collaborators
CNN = Oppression
CNN = Toadying

Antonyms:
CNN ≠ Respectable
CNN ≠ Honest
CNN ≠ Fair and Balanced

Now, let's try to use all these words together in a sentence or two.

So far as I can see, greed was CNN's only motivating factor when it came to Iraq. Through their duplicitous behavior of hiding the truth, they have become the worst sort of hypocrites: collaborators in the oppression of the Iraqi people, toadying up to Saddam so they could continue to report "news stories" from Iraq.

A respectable news service could never operate under such conditions and hope to maintain honest, fair or balanced coverage.

In short, CNN's actions makes me regret that President Bush nixed the International Criminal Court treaty, because in my mind the executives and reporters of CNN should be brought before a tribunal on charges of crimes against humanity.

(Aside: I was sorting through some files and ran across an old SAT prep test. Inspiration comes from many strange places.)

Supersonic Losses Ground Concorde

The era of high-speed civil transport has come to an end, only 27 years after it began.

CNN: All The News That's Fit To Hide

What do you do when you're a multi-national corporation, and you discover that one of the nations you do business with is abducting your employees and torturing them for weeks? Demand that it never happen again? Cease operations and withdraw your staff?

Not if your name is CNN.   Instead of reporting the barbaric act to the world, you cover it up.

In the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that [a CNN news executive] was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief.

Thanks boss, for standing up for Employee Rights!

Kind of makes you wonder about CNN news reports coming out of the other "People's Republic's" (read: China, Cuba, Libya, etc.) doesn't it?

Looting Stops In Bagdahd

Via ScrappleFace:

The looting in Baghdad stopped suddenly today as Iraq's largest organized crime family disappeared from the city. Thousands of Baghdad residents entered government buildings in an attempt to retrieve some small portion of what had been stolen from them for the past 24 years.

"I got a big vase from one of Uday's offices," said one local woman. "It can never replace the family members Saddam took from me, but all of this stuff belongs to the people and it was taken from us without our permission."


Posted by crandal at 01:51 PM

Who Sold Weapons to Iraq?

Remember all those stories about how the Evil Reagan allowed the United States to sell weapons to Iraq back during the Decade of Greed? (For all you youngsters, that's the 1980's I'm referring to, not the 1990's.)

Well, this kind of puts it all into perspective, doesn't it?

Note that this chart represents weapons sales from before the first gulf war. This is why you may see news information about weapons from other countries (Germany, Yugoslavia, etc.) that are not listed here.

Additional Credits go to the Comand Post.

Oh Excellent, Excellent!

Read this NOW.

What I want to know is when the perpetrators of the [war] myths ... can be expected to offer their apologies. Judging by Tam Dalyell's performance on the Today programme yesterday, not just yet.

He now seems to be amending the forecast of millions of children killed to millions of children traumatised: a sad enough notion, certainly, but a mite different from the one that was being bandied about by the more hysterical anti-war lobby a week or two ago.

I have this delightful fantasy of George Galloway, Shirley Williams, Chris Smith, Frank Dobson, most of the BBC newsroom, the entire Liberal Democrat Party and the Guardian comment page editorial staff putting their hands up en masse and saying: "Well, actually we got that a little bit wrong."

Lessons from "Black Hawk Down"

It's been said that Saddam Hussein used the movie "Black Hawk Down" as a guide for his war strategy. His goal was to recreate Mogadishu in Bagdahd. (Of course, our friends on the left were foolishly rooting for him to succeed.)

In the end, however, Mogadishu will always be more of a commentary on the Clinton Administration than a guideline for urban warfare. If the Clinton Administration had given the green light for the use of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and AC-130 Gunships, both of which the military brass had requested, then there would never have been a Mogadishu. Instead, they sent umarmored vehicles with inadaquate air support. The Clinton Administration made a conscious decision that gunships and armored vehicles were the wrong political message for a humanitarian mission to be carrying.

Of course, a humanitarion misison should never have been tasked with abducting a warlord, either.

Wow!

This kind of says it all, doesn't it?

A Humble Suggestion

Here is what Colin Powell had to say in a recent interview on German TV:

The role of the U.N. will ultimately be determined by the Security Council resolutions that are passed, authorizing the role.

All of a sudden, it hit me: Why don't we just VETO every resolution that the Germans and the French propose regarding Iraqi reconstruction? Clearly they can't act without U.N. authorization because that would be, you know, reckless unilateralism, wouldn't it?

From Quagmire to Conquerors...

..in only eight days.   Peter Arnett, eat your heart out:

Fox News' Greg Kelly, embedded with the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division, reports exclusively from the newly seized Saddam Hussein presidential palace; a U.S. 3rd ID tank stands guard outside the palace entrance in downtown Baghdad.

Nerve Gas Exposure in Iraq

And so it begins...

Attention Arabs & Muslims of the World!

I had to turn off the television in disgust after watching 60 Minutes parade a stream of ignorant Arabs and Muslims across the screen. The general consensus of these folks: That this war is all about killing Arabs and Muslims.

A few words in response, please?

First, don't humor yourselves. The truth of the matter is that the United States doesn't waste time killing Arabs and Muslims just for kicks. Honestly, we've got better things to do with our lives. We really do.

Second, our mission in Iraq is to disarm and destroy a ruthless dictator, who by the way, has killed a million or so Arabs and Muslims over his lifetime. Why weren't you marching in the streets then?

And finally, if we really were interested in killing Arabs and Muslims, do you think we would send 250,000 of America's Finest into harm's way to get it done? The United States has the power to kill every Arab and Muslim in the Middle East without risking the life of a single American soldier. It's as simple as pushing a button.

Sobering, isn't it?

A General Malaise

I have not felt well for several days, and resultant, there have been few posts on this site. I'm feeling a little bit better today, and hopefully will feel much better tomorrow. I hate being sick!

Global Warming In Perspective

Most everyone agrees that it's getting warmer. The real question becomes, is this warming a significant event in global history? Here is the latest evidence to the contrary, which can be summed up as "it was a lot hotter a thousand years ago, and everything turned out fine."

The French: Not Anti-War, Just On The Other Side

The story is here.

Only a third of the French felt that they were on the same side as the Americans and British, and another third desired outright Iraqi victory over 'les anglo-saxons'.

In other news, a British war cemetery in northern France was desecrated. Slogans reading "Death to Yankees" and "Rosbeefs (Brits) go home" were painted on a memorial in Etaples for soldiers of the first world war.