December 30th, 2010
One last batch of Jihad news to tide you over until the New Year:
- Smoking and guns, no, but Jihad, yes: Mayor Bloomberg is working behind the scenes to get the Ground Zero Mosque built.
- Seven anti-slavery activists head to prison. Sadly, this is not a repeat from 1859.
- Speaking of repeats, yes, Islamists are still pissed over those Danish cartoons. Molly Norris unavailable for comment. And of course, this is obligatory:
- And speaking of Danish cartoon riots, Syria helped foment them.
- And speaking of Molly Norris, here’s an interview with Karen Lugo on why there should be a Molly Norris Day.
- Iraq’s banned Ba’ath Party is getting back together, an idea that should prove to be as popular as reuniting the 2008 Detroit Lions…
- Sharia law comes to Thailand.
- I’m no longer surprised at Muslim “honor killings.” But most killers don’t off their own mother in a courtroom.
- Speaking of honor killings, Iraqi man kills his daughter because she was recruited by al-Qaida as a suicide bomber. Ummm, you’re still doing it wrong…
- This week’s weird thing for Muslims throwing a hissy fit over is (rolls dice) Top Gear hosts wearing burkas.
- The true meaning of Kwanzaa. I knew Kwanzaa was a naked attempt to promote Marxism in the black community, but I never realized the guy who invented it spent four years in prison for torturing a woman with a soldering iron.
- “Food. I need food.” “Here, have a grenade instead.” BOOOM!
Tags: al Qaeda, cartoons, Ground Zero Mosque, honor killing, Iraq, Jihad, Karen Lugo, Kwanzaa, Michael Bloomberg, Molly Norris, Ronald McKinley Everett, slavery, This Week in Jihad, Top Gear
Posted in Jihad, Media Watch | No Comments »
December 29th, 2010
This post by Ann Althouse (and the ensuing comments) got me thinking about just what is the worst liberal song of all time? Being a man of action, I went ahead and created a poll:
A few notes on my criteria:
- It had to be a popular song people would actually recognize (which meant everything by Rage Against the Machine was right out)
- It had to suck (so things like the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” and many Dead Kennedys songs were exempt because they kicked ass)
- Only one song per artist (I mean, I really could have used just about everything off Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut otherwise)
- It had to have a certain self-righteous pretentiousness about it, so anything that was actually funny was exempt.
So go ahead and vote for your favorite musical slice of Suckitude.
Tags: Fail, music, poll, Suckitude
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
December 29th, 2010
The Massachusetts Criminal Justice System seems to be especially unclear on the idea that, if a career felon is in jail on “three concurrent life sentences,” you don’t let him out on parole. Their lack of clarity on that issue cost 35-year police veteran John “Jack” Maguire his life.
(Hat tip: Say Uncle.)
Tags: Crime, Dominic Cinelli, John "Jack" Maguire, Kevin Dingwell, Massachusetts, murder, Scott Hanwright, Woburn
Posted in Crime | 1 Comment »
December 28th, 2010
Last week I mentioned that China’s Housing bubble is already worse than America and Japan’s respective bubbles.
Today the Wall Street Journal provides even more confirmation:
It’s impossible to say definitively that a market has strayed into bubble territory until after the collapse. But prices rising out of the reach of average buyers is one indicator. Housing prices in the U.S. peaked at 6.4 times average annual earnings this decade. In Beijing, the figure is 22 times.
The figures get even worse when you consider that the “shadow market” (i.e., banks making “off book” loans) means the bubble is even worse than it seems:
Local governments and banks have set up off-balance sheet vehicles to conceal loans and keep the spending boom going. Fitch Ratings estimates that not only did banks exceed the central bank’s 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) cap on lending for this year, they made an additional three trillion yuan of these shadow loans.
Something that can’t go on forever won’t. That’s especially true of a housing boom in a country aging as rapidly as China (which Mark Steyn famously said “will get old before it gets rich”); and don’t forget that a rapidly aging populace was also a factor in Japan’s own “lost decade.”
The big question is whether China’s housing bubble or Europe’s Sovereign Debt Crisis pops first. The aftershocks of both will certainly be felt in our own economy…
Tags: bubble, China, Economics, Japan, Mark Steyn
Posted in Economics, Foreign Policy | 2 Comments »
December 26th, 2010
Guess which one is the better place to live?
When the Internet economy allows an increasing number of people to live anywhere, low costs win. Texans spend 8.4% of income on state and local taxes compared with 11.7% for New Yorkers. Dollars that would rent a fifth-floor walk-up in New York City instead can buy a small ranch and maybe even acreage in Texas’ suburbs, where prairie begs to be paved for another Applebee’s.
Texas creates jobs like a fiend, in part because businesses large and small have no worry of obstacles such as plaintiff-friendly courts, consumer-friendly regulators or oversight-friendly lawmakers. Pro-business isn’t just a mantra; they put it in the water.
Oil and gas still play a huge role here, but are increasingly overshadowed by technology, medical and defense jobs. Texas has more Fortune 500 company headquarters than New York.
Tags: Economics, New York, Taxes, Texas
Posted in Economics, Regulation, Texas | No Comments »
December 26th, 2010
Meet Lance Mitchell, the man who runs speedtrapahead.org. He not only founded a website to warn people about speed traps, he actually stood up the road from one in his home of speedtrap-crazy Lakeway in his bright orange “Speed Trap Ahead” t-shirt…and got arrested for his troubles. The charge? Among others: illegal signage. For wearing a t-shirt.
Federal courts have pretty regularly held t-shirts to be a form of free speech (see Boroff v. Van Wert City Board of Education, for example), so it’s no surprise that all the charges were dismissed, and Mitchell has reached a settlement with Lakeway on his own lawsuit.
(Hat tip: Fark.)
Tags: Free Speech, Lakeway, speed trap, Texas
Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | No Comments »
December 24th, 2010
From Belmont Club. Covers not only the recent Korean artillery exchange, but also the strategic implications of China’s shipping lanes. Worth a read.
Tags: China, Foreign Policy, Japan, North Korea
Posted in Foreign Policy | No Comments »
December 24th, 2010
Sure, it’s been a great for those of us fighting Big Government, but since it’s the Christmas Season, have you given any thought to helping the less-fortunate? Has anyone given a thought to all those poor Democratic congressman and staffer who just lost their jobs?
Iowahawk has, and he’s provided a handy outplacement guide for those unfortunates voters have recently retired:
In order to land that good job back in your home district, you first need to understand the ins and outs of the non-Washington economic system. Unlike Washington’s easy-to-understand system of leveraging raw unbridled rulemaking and police power to extract tribute from fearful and/or favor-seeking constituents, non-Washington industries are largely based on the production of “goods” or “services.” It sounds complicated, but the basic idea boils down to making things or doing things that other people will pay for. The complicated part is to remember that they must pay for them voluntarily.
That’s Iowahawk for you: Always looking out for the unfortunate.
God bless us each and every one.
Tags: Christmas, Democrats, Iowahawk, Satire
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2010
Bruce is a lefty sort, but there’s a whole lot of pithy interest and insight in this essay, as there usually is in Bruce’s essays. And also like many of Bruce’s essays, it’s very long. I hope to finish it myself later on today…
Tags: Bruce Sterling, technology, Wikileaks
Posted in Foreign Policy | No Comments »
December 23rd, 2010
Some pre-Christmas Jihad news:
- Speaking of Christmas, crosses have been banned in Bethleham.
- UK Islamic group launches campaign against Christmas, saying it leads to rape, abortions, crime, pedophilia and raves. They forgot fruitcake.
- In the course of a general indictment of Islam, Rule Britannia (a blog I’m not particularly familiar with; a quick perusal suggests a mainstream Euro/Islamic skepticism rather than the swamps of the National Front) cites this death toll for all of Islam from its founding to the current day of 270 million people. I don’t know enough about the history of the regions cited (Africa, India, etc.) to say how accurate this estimate is, but my initial look suggests its on the high side, with extrapolated estimate taken from of single data sources, which tends to result in distorted figures. Still, Will Durant called the Islamic conquest of India the bloodiest episode in all of history (though that was in 1935, which Hitler and Mao still to come, and the sizes of Stalin’s crimes still largely hidden).
- Somalis unite for the time-honored pastime of burning christian books.
- Iranian truck drivers go on strike due to an end to diesel subsidies in port of Bandar Abbas. This would suck if it was happening in a European country, but I’m just fine and dandy about it happening in Iran…
- The Washington Post says there are similar problems in the rest of Iran. Faster, please.
- Australian muslims found guilty of plotting to attack an army base.
- Kosovo’s Prime Minster involved in organ trafficking. Sadly, this does not appear to be an urban legend, and The Guardian is hardly known for their fierce anti-Islamic agenda…
- Here’s another Greek Orthodox prelate going off the deep end. Sayeth the Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim: “Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire.”
- Everyone and their dog (including Fark) has covered this story about a Gitmo detainee claiming that “Jewish guards used witchcraft on prisoners, made me feel a cat was trying to penetrate me.”
- Spanish teacher reprimanded for merely mentioning ham.
Tags: book burning, Christmas, genocide, Greek Orthodox Church, Guantanamo Bay, Islam, Jihad, This Week in Jihad, War on Christmas
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad | No Comments »