OSwindling Futurity (Bumped) (Bumped Again)

clipped from www.qando.net “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” - Thomas Jefferson UPDATE: "The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation" - V.I. Lenin UPDATED AGAIN: "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

A Real Treat For Thinkers: An Interview With F.A. Hayek

F.A. Hayek Interviewed By John O'Sullivan from FEE on Vimeo.

Wow. Just Wow. Somehow they forgot to tell you that Keynesianism was discredited in the 70s by the combination of high inflation and unemployment that Keynes said couldn't happen if his theories were implemented. But Hayek predicted it of course. (From the mises.org site.)

The Hell Hole (Part 92363)

"Perhaps because no TV cameras were allowed in, and far too little information was allowed out, the North Korean famine of the 1990s remains one of the most muffled horrors of modern times. By now, however, there have been enough studies, reports, and tales from defectors to confirm that the deprivation in North Korea was catastrophic: One million or more people died, and food shortages continue to this day.

But the true causes of this famine are too often blurred by politics and propaganda. When North Korea's government finally asked for international aid, in 1996, Kim Jong Il's regime blamed what was by then a full-blown nightmare on floods that had hit the country in 1995. Even today, United Nations aid agencies tend to highlight floods, droughts, bad harvests, and such as the main reasons for food shortages. And even among those who correctly blame the regime of Kim Jong Il for the famine, the actual mechanisms are not always well understood.

It is a welcome contribution, then, that scholars Stephan Haggard of the University of California at San Diego and Marcus Noland of the Institute for International Economics have teamed up to write "Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform" ( Columbia University Press, 309 pages, $35). Packed with insights into the North Korean system, this book draws on a growing body of publications and testimony about North Korea to provide an indepth account and analysis not only of the famine, but of the ruinous nature of Kim Jong Il's regime."

You Can Google It

"Yes, I know. Tens of thousands of ordinary college students are lonely, full of rage, lost and frustrated. A few percent are psychotically disturbed, and some of them can kill. Our big factory colleges are alienating. Take millions of adolescents, and at any time there are bound to be quite a few confused and seething souls walking loose. Just visit downtown in any American or European city, and you can see all the lost and disturbed living in their private hells. And no, that doesn't excuse executing thirty-two innocents.

Still, I wonder --- was Cho taught to hate? Whatever he learned in his classes --- did it enable him to rage at his host country, to hate the students he envied so murderously? Was he subtly encouraged to aggrandize himself by destroying others? Was his pathology enabled by the PC university? Or to ask the question differently --- was Cho ever taught to respect others, to admire the good things about his host country, and to discipline himself to build a positive life?

And that answer is readily available on the websites of Cho's English Department at Virginia Tech. This is a wonder world of PC weirdness. English studies at VT are a post-modern Disney World in which nihilism, moral and sexual boundary breaking, and fantasies of Marxist revolutionary violence are celebrated. They show up in a lot of faculty writing. Not by all the faculty, but probably by more than half.

Just check out their websites. "

The (Crazed) Sopranos With A Burqa

"The group, which used to claim a younger Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a member, killed its victims by either stoning them to death or drowning them in a pond while they sat on their chests. They selected their victims themselves, never referring them to any law-enforcement agency or court system. The Basijis literally made themselves judge, jury, and executioner in these cases.

That should present a problem to any rational court system. Essentially, the Iranian Supreme Court just made itself superfluous. They ruled that the fair-haired boys of the mullahcracy (so to speak) need not bother with courts or judges at all. They can freely operate outside the law. The families of the victims have been pressured into accepting blood money in exchange for justice in some cases, which adds another dimension to the issue: the rich can kill whomever they want, as long as they have good political connections.

Even for a regime as closely tied to the 14th century as the Iranian mullahcracy, that kind of endorsement takes one's breath away. It serves as a declaration that Iran has officially become a gangster government, and that the populace has no rights whatsoever in their Islamist mob-family system. It's the Sopranos with a burqa, only with less stable capos and bosses." [ These lunatics are what the MSM keeps telling us are devoutly "religious" "victims" of western "oppression". -ed. ]

Heggy On The Koreas

"In addition to the previously mentioned comparisons between the two countries, the amount of the total economic production in South Korea is equivalent to $1200 billion while the economic production in North Korea does not exceed $40 billion, which means that the local production of South Korea is 30 times what it is in North Korea. The per capita real income in South Korea has reached $24,000 per year, while in North Korea it is less than $1,800 per year. It could be useful and even funny for readers to know that the average height of males in South Korea has increased to 1.74 m, while it remains 1.58 m among North Korean males. Finally, life expectancy in South Korea is approaching 80 years, while it remains ten years less than that in North Korea.

I think that readers will agree that these comparative statistics are extremely significant indicators that need no explanation. One country chose poverty, backwardness, and suffering, while the other chose progress, prosperity, health, and production. Talking about the pride of a nation, one side chose to receive donations and financial aid, while the other chose development and wealth and has subsequently obtained excess funds so that it can offer aid to others." [ As I have pointed out, a virtual laboratory experiment that leftists keep very, very quiet about... -ed. ]

Speech As Weapon

"What we have then are two positions about the nature of speech. The postmodernists say: Speech is a weapon in the conflict between groups that are unequal. And that is diametrically opposed to the liberal view of speech, which says: Speech is a tool of cognition and communication for individuals who are free.

If we adopt the first statement, then the solution is going to be some form of enforced altruism, under which we redistribute speech in order to protect the harmed, weaker groups. If the stronger, white males have speech tools they can use to the detriment of the other groups, then don't let them use those speech tools. Generate a list of denigrating words that harm members of the other groups and prohibit members of the powerful groups from using them. Don't let them use the words that reinforce their own racism and sexism, and don't let them use words that make members of other groups feel threatened. Eliminating those speech advantages will reconstruct our social reality - which is the same goal as affirmative action. A striking consequence of this analysis is that the toleration of "anything goes" in speech becomes censorship. The postmodern argument implies that if anything goes, then that gives permission to the dominant groups to keep on saying the things that keep the subordinate groups in their place. Liberalism thus means helping to silence the subordinate groups and letting only the dominant groups have effective speech. Postmodern speech codes, therefore, are not censorship but a form of liberation - they liberate the subordinated groups from the punishing and silencing effects of the powerful groups' speech, and they provide an atmosphere in which the previously subordinated groups can express themselves. Speech codes equalize the playing field." [ Antonio Gramsci must be very, very proud ... -ed. ]

Welcome To The "Democracy" Of Dictatorships (Part 92365)

"It would be an insult that we cannot afford to let pass. If the UN does not immediately fire everyone involved in this scandal and revoke their immunity, then we must cut off all funds for the UN and create a timetable for withdrawal from this thoroughly corrupt organization. We have no need of a debating society whose members transform refugee camps into seraglios, who stuff the pockets of dictators with money meant for those they oppress, and who actively assist other nations in undermining our currency. If the UN fails to cooperate, it's time to push Turtle Bay into the water and bid adieu to the last of the Cold War anachronisms."

Hellholes Are Hard To Help

"African leaders often point fingers at the West for "not doing enough." But last week's meeting of the Southern African Development Community shows why sensible wealthy nations are reluctant to give aid.

For at that meeting, some of Africa's so-called leaders disgraced themselves by endorsing the brutal, murderous regime of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe's 27 years of misrule have taken a country that was once prosperous — the breadbasket of Africa, it was called — and turned it into a poverty-stricken hellhole rife with famine, genocide and terror, and lacking rule of law."

Darfur Update: Welcome To The West's Future

""They beat us, but we treat them like family," added his friend Abdulmalik Ismail. "In our minds, we hate them."

I can't imagine why." [ Of course, beatings are their idea of the family norm. And as that last link shows, Eurabia is about to join the family... -ed. ]

Lieberman On Hell In Washington ... But There's Hope In Iran?

"Increasingly, the debate over our foreign policy is becoming so polarized, so partisan, so bound up in the battles we are having here in Washington, that it seems blind to the real battle outside of America, the challenge of our time from the Islamist extremists who want to destroy us all, who attacked America on September 11, 2001, and intend to do so again." [ Maybe not very realistic hope in Iran, but you really need to click through and watch the video. Apparently the libs think these women are the thuggish puppets of the hateful Rethuglicans? Excuse me, over? -ed. ]

G-d Done It? Or Perhaps Instead The Weather Witches?

"Since 19th century European intellectuals decided to murder G-d and throw his remains in a dumpster, Death has stalked the world, reaping hundreds of millions of souls with industrial efficiency. Of course, the really bright, post-normal folk will tell you it was Christianity done it.

Yeah...when I think of WWI, WWII, Fascism, National Socialism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Potism (Who knew?), and Islamofascism, I think G-d, don't you? For a dead guy, G-d sure causes a lot of trouble.

Did something happen to the gene pool during the Little Ice Age?" [ Actually, there were clearly some quite severe problems then. This 7 minute video might help you understand... -ed. ]

Not Even 22 Rats For Dinner

"Rate of Inflation, 1,740%. Unemployment, 80%. HIV infection rate, 33%. Life expectancy, 34. Motto: “Unity, Freedom, Work.” National anthem: Kalibusiswe Ilizwe leZimbabwe “Blessed be the land of Zimbabwe”"

No. 22: Hot Rails To Hell

See another clip and purchase via a post on Michelle's site...

Superior Fashion

"But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece. They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their feet than live on their knees.

If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others."