28 February 2007 @ 11:15PM >> I will be in Washington, D.C. this Friday evening for a screening of the Indoctrinate U trailer at CPAC. This appearance is part of an event hosted by the Moving Picture Institute.

Stop by and say hi if you’re in the area of the Omni Shoreham hotel around 8:30PM.

More information is available on the invitation [PDF file; 276K].

27 February 2007 @ 9:34PM >> Despite the frequent attempts to claim otherwise, the scientific community does not unanimously believe in man-made global warming. And now, more than 17,000 scientists have signed a petition to that effect, stating:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

24 February 2007 @ 5:50PM >> Contrary to the widely-held Western belief that terrorism arises when impressionable, impoverished teens look towards a future without hope, Islamic terrorists tend to come from the better-educated, wealthier segments of society. Investor’s Business Daily reports on a Gallup poll of some 10,000 members of the Muslim world, saying that “[t]he most radical among Muslims — those who support jihad — earn more and stay in school longer.”

IBD cites anecdotal evidence that bears this out:

• Bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, studied engineering.
• His deputy Ayman al-Zawahri is an eye surgeon.
• Mohamed Atta, the son of a lawyer, earned a master’s degree in urban planning.
• 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed graduated from an American college with an engineering degree.
• Flight 93 pilot Ziad Jarrah’s father is a Beirut bureaucrat who drove a Mercedes and put his son through prep school.

Some of the London bombers had college degrees. One was a schoolteacher. Another’s father owned a store.

Many of the Saudi hijackers were the best and brightest in their towns. Hani Hanjour, who crashed the plane into the Pentagon, studied English at the University of Arizona. Family members were wealthy merchants from Taif, a resort city in Saudi Arabia.

Marxism made popular the idea that all political turmoil was the result of clashes between socioeconomic classes. Although Marxism ultimately failed, that core tenet became the default thinking of many Westerners.

We perceive the motivations of the Jihadists through a distinctly Western lens. We’re projecting our beliefs onto them, and assuming that their behavior must be motivated by what our teachers taught us was the source of all conflict. Marxism may not have destroyed the West economically, but it could destroy the West psychologically, by preventing us from seeing the threat as it is.

Just because we learned in school that all conflict results from friction between the classes doesn’t make it so. This conflict stems from a profound cultural difference, one that can’t be papered over by feel-good policies like increased foreign aid.

Take Egypt, for example. Since 1975, Egypt has gotten well over $50 billion in U.S. foreign aid. Has this money made Egypt any less beholden to the Jihadists?

Not if the treatment of Abdel Kareem Soliman is any indication. This past week, the Egyptian blogger was sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and the president of Egypt. An abridgment of freedom that—in the U.S.—would send lawyers scurrying to television cameras was instead met with a shrug:

As the court hearing ended, the media moved to the street in front of the courthouse and started interviewing people about what they thought of the trial. With the exception of human rights activists and bloggers, the Egyptian public seemed satisfied with the verdict, if not disappointed it wasn’t longer.

Many people expressed the view that Abdel Kareem should be killed for what he wrote, and each of them shared their preferred way to kill him: stabbing, hanging, and of course, the classic beheading. One actually asked a lawyer if it was legal to now kill him, since this verdict clearly brands him as an apostate, and the Sharia punishment for an apostasy is death. People were talking about killing him in the most casual manner, as if he was no longer a human being to them.

As I said, today’s conflict with the Jihadists arises from a profound cultural difference, not from America’s past foreign policy or failure to hand out even more money around the globe. But for some reason, many of us prefer to point the finger back at ourselves and ignore the real source of the problem. Simply put, finding fault with other cultures just isn’t politically correct.

But in war, refusing to understand the enemy is suicidal.

23 February 2007 @ 8:16AM >> Jesse Jackson is taking Hollywood to task for not being diverse enough. (Diverse in terms of skin color, that is. The lack of ideological diversity in Hollywood is not a concern of Jackson’s, I would assume.) Now, on a certain level, I sympathize with Jackson’s criticisms. As someone who has become bored by the fact that widely distributed films with political overtones invariably espouse a leftist worldview, I know that it can be frustrating when the industry ignores your market segment.

If certain segments are not being served, that reflects an inefficiency in the industry and presents a market opportunity for enterprising folks who can fill that void by delivering a different product. (In the film business, things are a bit trickier since there are a limited number of movie screens, owned by a small number of companies that typically only deal with major Hollywood distributors.)

So while I think Jackson may have a legitimate complaint about Hollywood in general, he does himself a disservice by relying on statistics that don’t show the problem he decries. One of Jackson’s “areas of concern,” according to Variety, is that “[c]asting of minority actors remains a problem.” Jackson cited “a UCLA study by Russell Robinson” that found “69 percent of Hollywood roles were reserved for white actors.”

First of all, were those roles actually reserved for or merely filled by white actors? If the former were true, then Jackson would be bringing lawsuits, not issuing press statements. (Or maybe not; such lawsuits would have to argue that racial set-asides are illegal and/or immoral—arguments that undermine affirmative action.)

Regardless, 69% of roles being filled by white actors isn’t damning statistic, considering that the most recent census statistics show that 69.4% of the country is classified as “non-Hispanic white.” According to the census and the study that Jackson cites, whites are ever-so-slightly underrepresented in Hollywood. That doesn’t exactly bolster Jackson’s argument.

If you’re going to engage in racial bean-counting, Jesse, at least pick a pile of beans worth complaining about.

22 February 2007 @ 8:49AM >> A female government minister in Pakistan was shot in the head and killed for not wearing a veil:

Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said.

Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.

[...]

The gunman, Mohammad Sarwar, was overpowered by the minister’s driver and arrested by police. A stone mason in his mid 40s, he is not thought to belong to any radical group but is known for his fanaticism. He was previously held in 2002 in connection with the killing and mutilation of four prostitutes, but was never convicted due to lack of evidence.

Mr Sarwar appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had carried out God’s order to kill women who sinned. “I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment,” he said, adding that Islam did not allow women to hold positions of leadership. “I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again,” he said.

[...]

Ms Usman, a married mother of two sons, joined the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League after being elected in 2002. A strong supporter of the President’s policy of “enlightened moderation” - designed to tackle extremism - she was appointed to her current post in December last year according to her government biography.

In April 2005, she encouraged the holding of a mini-marathon involving female competitors in Gujranwala - an event which led to riots after police intervened to stop armed Islamic activists from disrupting the race. She also ran a small fashion business from her base in the town.

[...]

General Musharraf, whose support for the US-led war on terror has caused consternation among Pakistan’s hardline elements, has promised to address women’s rights as part of his more moderate agenda.

But analysts said that the murder of the female minister highlighted the failure of his government in curbing Islamic extremism. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a recent report said that violence against women had increased alarmingly, with some of the incidents incited by Mullahs opposed to women’s emancipation.

21 February 2007 @ 8:39AM >> From the land down under:

Terror suspects could be given taxpayer-funded counselling for being angry or having low self-esteem.

Under the proposal, the Federal Government would provide psychological counselling and anger management support to terror suspects and those subject to control orders.

But secrecy surrounds the initiative because the Australian Federal Police has refused to reveal the specifics of its proposal.

Scant details were released through a Federal Government question on notice.

“Some of the options considered include religious education, psychological support and assistance with issues such as anger management, low self-esteem, social identity and family separation,” the AFP said, responding to a question on voluntary education programs for terrorists.

20 February 2007 @ 8:52AM >> I don’t often find myself agreeing with the political sensibilities of Steve Jobs, but if there’s one thing the man knows, it’s how to build a successful organization. So when the founder both Apple and Pixar started talking about teachers’ unions, I was pleasantly surprised:

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.

“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

“Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win.’”

[...]

“I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” Jobs said.

“This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”

Public education is effectively a monopoly for the portion of the country that can’t afford private schools. And the problem with public education is the same as any other monopoly: the organization functions as though its customers are merely an annoyance only tangentially related to the organization’s survival.

That’s why you hear teachers’ unions oppose school choice on the grounds that it would hurt failing schools. But the point of public education is not to ensure the survival of schools, it’s to ensure the education of students. So what if failing schools are closed? They should close. And the only way that’ll ever happen is if less-advantaged families have an opportunity to vote with their feet and abandon the schools that are failing their children.

16 February 2007 @ 7:49AM >> Socialism always leads to the same predictable ruin for nations ignorant of history. Yet for some reason, the ideology that enslaved millions throughout the 20th century still appeals to wide-eyed leftists throughout academia and around the globe.

Venezuela is the latest country to fall victim to the delusion of utopia through socialism:

Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.

President Hugo Chavez’s administration blames the food supply problems on speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible.

Such shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.

Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.

“Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls,” Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told Union Radio on Thursday. “The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high.”

Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.

Major private supermarkets suspended sales of beef earlier this week after one chain was shut down for 48 hours for pricing meat above government-set levels, but an agreement reached with the government on Wednesday night promises to return meat to empty refrigerator shelves.

15 February 2007 @ 8:12AM >> The New York Sun reports:

The letter “X” soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.

The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The commission’s damning of the letter “X” came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name “Explorer.”

[...]

Among the commission’s deeds is the famed 1974 fatwa — issued by its blind leader at the time, Sheik Abdul Aziz Ben Baz — which declared that the Earth was flat and immobile. In a book issued by the Islamic University of Medina, the sheik argued: “If the earth is rotating, as they claim, the countries, the mountains, the trees, the rivers, and the oceans will have no bottom.” Another bright light of the commission, Sheik Abdel-Aziz al-Sheikh, recently stopped a government reform proposal aimed at creating work for women by allowing them to replace male sales clerks in women’s clothing stores. Sheik al-Sheikh damned the idea, saying it was a step “towards immorality and hellfire.” The underlying logic is breathtaking: Women are more protected by buying their knickers from men! Over the years, the commission has rendered Saudi Arabia a true kingdom of darkness. Movie theaters are banned, as are sculptures, paintings, and music, and the mixing of sexes in public.

The commission really has it in for women. They must don the all-enveloping veil, or niqab, in public; they cannot drive themselves nor ride anywhere without a male guardian, and they cannot travel alone domestically or abroad.

The commission also excels at banning the construction of houses of worship — other than mosques — even though the majority of the 8 million expatriates working in the kingdom come from Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist faiths. Indeed, celebrating a private Sunday Mass inside a home could lead to jail, public lashings, and expulsion.

One of the most criminal travesties committed by the commission’s foot soldiers, the Mutawaeen, or religious police, was dramatically reported by the muzzled Saudi press itself on Friday, March 15, 2002, when the Mutawaeen forcibly prevented girls fleeing a burning school from leaving the building because they were “improperly dressed.”

The day after, the Saudi Gazette newspaper quoted witnesses as saying the police stopped men who tried to help the girls, warning the men: “It is sinful to approach them.”

Of the 800 teenage pupils in Mecca, 15 burned to death and more than 50 were injured. Yet, the commission and its royal enablers thrive.

14 February 2007 @ 7:59AM >> The federal budget surplus increased by 82% in January.

(Surplus? There’s a budget surplus? Who knew? Certainly not the media.)

---

Update: A criticism of the post is that by focusing on one month, I painted an inaccurate picture. The statistics were for the month of January. I generally assume people will follow the links for the full story. But just in case, the first link from MarketWatch indicates that tax receipts are generally higher in January due to individuals (like me) making estimated tax payments.

But MarketWatch also states: “For the first four months of the 2007 fiscal year, the deficit was $42.2 billion, about 57.2% lower than the $98.4 billion deficit in the same period in the previous fiscal year.” The trajectory of the falling deficit is impressive, potentially leading to a balanced budget by mid-2008.

My distrust of the establishment media’s reporting of the economy still stands. I would hope the media would be equally vigorous in reporting good economic news regardless of which party occupies the White House. And by many measures, the economy over the last few years has outperformed the economy of the mid-to-late 1990s. Unlike then, today’s boom is not based on the irrational exuberance of an Internet-driven stock market bubble. And unlike today, the 1990s economy was not saddled with the massive economic damage caused by the September 11th attacks.

Nevertheless, a surplus in a single month is not the same as a surplus for the fiscal year, and we’re not there yet. The fact that, in my view, the media represents the economy inaccurately is no excuse for my doing the same.

13 February 2007 @ 7:45AM >> Apparently, Al Gore is capable of singlehandedly combating global warming just by his mere presence.

A couple years ago, I gathered evidence of his ability to do this myself.

If global warming is man-made, maybe the solution is simply to clone Al Gore and to place the clones strategically around the planet.

12 February 2007 @ 9:33PM >> At public colleges and universities, the law requires that the full freedoms of the First Amendment apply without limitation. And thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision regarding flag-burning, this means it is entirely legal—in the name of free speech—to set the American flag ablaze at the place like San Francisco State University.

And while I am unaware of any case where San Francisco State has attempted to punish students for burning the American flag, the school is poised to punish students for lesser forms of flag desecration:

This story starts with an “anti-terrorism rally” held last October on campus by the College Republicans. To emphasize their point, students stomped on Hezbollah and Hamas flags. According to the college paper, the Golden Gate (X)Press, members of Students Against War and the International Socialist Organization showed up to call the Republicans “racists,” while the president of the General Union of Palestinian Students accused the Repubs of spreading false information about Muslims.

In November, the Associated Students board passed a unanimous resolution, which the (X)Press reported, denounced the California Republicans for “hateful religious intolerance” and criticized those who “pre-meditated the stomping of the flags knowing it would offend some people and possibly incite violence.”

Now you know that there are students who are opposed to desecrating flags on campus — that is, if the flags represent terrorist organizations.

But wait — there’s more. A student filed a complaint with the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development. OSPLD Director Joey Greenwell wrote to the College Republicans informing them that his office had completed an investigation of the complaint and forwarded the report to the Student Organization Hearing Panel, which will adjudicate the charge. At issue is the charge that College Republicans had walked on “a banner with the world ‘Allah’ written in Arabic script” — it turns out Allah’s name is incorporated into Hamas and Hezbollah flags — and “allegations of attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment,” as well as “actions of incivility.”

At an unnamed date, the student panel could decide to issue a warning to, suspend or expel the GOP club from campus.

[...]

The university’s response? Spokesperson Ellen Griffin told me, “The university stands behind this process.”

And: “I don’t believe the complaint is about the desecration of the flag. I believe that the complaint is the desecration of Allah.”

Robert Shibley notes:

SFSU has actually put in place a regime in which the Hamas and Hezbollah flags would receive more protection than the flag of our own nation, simply because they bear the name of a religious figure.

A good observation, but I suspect the Allah angle is just an excuse. What really matters here is the group bringing the complaint and the group on the receiving end of it.

Over the years at SFSU, the administration has repeatedly demonstrated that free speech is only afforded to the university’s favored groups. Several years ago, 13 police officers had to be called in to protect students manning a College Republicans information table that had been set upon and vandalized by a mob of some 300 people. The police did not attempt to disperse the crowd; instead, they informed the College Republicans that their safety could not be guaranteed and forced them to shut down their table.

And before that, a female Jewish student passed by a pro-Palestinian protest where she was bombarded with shouted slurs like “Hitler should have finished the job.” The woman, a 53-year-old continuing education student who emigrated from Russia, told her tormenters that they should “go fuck a pig.” She was promptly brought up on hate speech charges, but the students who said that Hitler should have killed all the Jews—and not just some 6 million of them—faced no punishment at all.

It’s interesting what actions are considered protected speech by the people who run San Francisco State.

10 February 2007 @ 5:58PM >> A reader points out that the tax disparity I highlighted in yesterday’s Two Americas post may be more severe than I indicated:

Hi Evan,

I think you understate the problem. You say “Yet today, 14 million Americans are receiving representation without paying any taxes, while 50% of the population pays 97% of the taxes. That means there are 14 million free-riders who have a vote that enables them to call for taxes to be raised on everyone else.” But the article says “about 14 million Americans at lower incomes have been removed from the federal income tax rolls since 2000“.

TaxProf’s Blog gave the percentages a couple years ago: 25.2% of filers reported zero tax liability in 2000, compared to 32.4% in 2004. The underlying report reveals the raw number of the untaxed grew nearly 10 million (from 32.5 million to 42.5 million) in those 4 years. I can’t find the latest numbers, but it’s certainly conceivable that 4 million more free-riders were added in 2005 and 2006. And this is just the number of tax returns filed, not the number of Americans. The report goes on to say “roughly 15 million individuals and families earned some income last year but not enough to be required to file a tax return.... Even 57.5 million is not the actual number of people because one tax return often represents several people. When all of the dependents of these income-producing people are counted, roughly 120 million Americans – 40 percent of the U.S. population – are outside of the federal income tax system.”

To be fair, however, a study of tax liability and propensity to vote is warranted if you’re going to claim tyranny of the majority. The study concludes by breaking down the numbers by several demographics, but “likely voters” isn’t one of them.

Cheers,
Bill

Thanks for the careful reading of the original report, Bill. It seems clear that I did understate the problem.

9 February 2007 @ 9:18AM >> Investor’s Business Daily on the “two Americas”:

As reported by Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, the richer half of the American population pays almost 97% of income taxes. And most of that — 54% — is paid by those in the top 5%. Those ranked in the top 1% — the richest of the rich — pay more than 34% of all personal income taxes collected by Uncle Sam.

What’s more, the Congressional Budget Office last month found that the after-tax income of those “superrich” actually declined after the Bush tax cuts — by 8.3% from 2000 to 2004.

Hand in hand with these trends, about 14 million Americans at lower incomes have been removed from the federal income tax rolls since 2000 because of the earned income tax credit and the per-child tax credit.

“John Edwards actually got it right,” Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge told IBD. “There are two Americas: a taxpaying America and a non-taxpaying America.” That means the recent increases in tax burden are actually understated for those still paying income taxes.

Despite this, Democrats in Congress are paving the way to raise taxes yet again. “The rich” need to pay their “fair share,” the argument goes. But I wonder: what exactly is a fair share? If I pay 40% of my income in taxes, is that fair? What about 50% or 75%?

No matter how much “the rich” pay—and according to the tax code, “the rich” includes plenty of middle class people—the taxers never seem satisfied.

This country was founded on the notion that it is immoral to tax people without giving them a say in how the government is run. Yet today, 14 million Americans are receiving representation without paying any taxes, while 50% of the population pays 97% of the taxes. That means there are 14 million free-riders who have a vote that enables them to call for taxes to be raised on everyone else.

There’s an old saying that simple democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. That’s why individual liberty is an important component of true freedom; it prevents tyranny of the majority.

The founders rightly decided that taxation without representation is unjust. But is representation without taxation any less unjust?

---

Update: The problem of tax free-riders is worse than the report above indicates.

7 February 2007 @ 9:02AM >> Democrats love to talk about our supposed lost freedoms in the wake of September 11th. But they have no problem trying to regulate the most mundane details of our day-to-day lives. In California, a Democrat-sponsored bill would outlaw incandescent lights and force everyone to live in homes with doctor’s office lighting. And now, a New York Democrat is trying to make it illegal to cross a street while listening to music or talking on the phone.

Add that to the growing list of other ways the nanny-politicians want to regulate our lives (banning the use of trans-fats in restaurants, removing foie gras from the menu, outlawing smoking in your home and your car, etc., etc.), and it’s pretty clear where our freedoms are really being lost.

But if you think about it, we should really be grateful. We’re too stupid to make these decisions on our own. We might hurt ourselves. Or someone else. Or maybe even a poor, defenseless goose. Thankfully, we have the crushing embrace of the nanny state to protect us from the horrors of the world.

The question is, does all this really go far enough? Why waste years and years making incremental changes? Think of all the people who might get hurt in the meantime. We need something comprehensive, something that’ll start saving lives today.

In that spirit, I propose the Universal Safety Act (USA). It’s a very simple three-step plan to ensure that everything is always safe. All corners must be rounded, all objects must be encased in rubberized protectant, and all citizens must wear head-to-toe suits made out of bubble wrap.

So, support the USA, and do it for the children: us.

5 February 2007 @ 3:54PM >> Every year, seven times as many Americans are killed by doctors’ sloppy handwriting than are killed in Iraq.

1 February 2007 @ 7:07AM >> Yesterday, Reuters ran a story covering Fidel Castro’s health recovery under the title “Cubans relieved to see Castro on TV,” as though there are no Cubans wishing for an end to the Castro regime.

The article lauds Castro as a “firebrand” and quotes only pro-Castro citizens. Of course, on-the-record anti-Castro quotes may be hard to come by, considering that, throughout the decades, many tens of thousands of Castro critics have ended up imprisoned and executed. Yet this fact is conveniently omitted from the article; instead, the author tries to paint a picture of widespread respect for the dictator:

Whether they support his government or not, Cubans widely admire Castro, the only leader they have known since he took power in a 1959 revolution and turned Cuba into the Western Hemisphere’s only communist state.

The reporter provides no support for her assertion that “Cubans widely admire Castro” and does not mention of the fact that, far from admiring Castro, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled his regime over the years, many of them risking death in rickety rafts just for a taste of freedom.

Not to be outdone in the blatant bias department, a competitor of Reuters published a piece whose opening sentence is so slanted that it requires no further comment. The Associated Press reports:

The House passed a $463.5 billion spending bill Wednesday that covers about one-sixth of the federal budget as Democrats cleared away the financial mess they inherited from Republicans.

(Hat tip: The Corner.)