Your Lying Eyes

Dedicated to uncovering the truth that stands naked before your lying eyes.

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30 April 2007

Let the Sobbing Continue

For liberal America, the New Bedford immigration raid is the gift that keeps on giving. You'd think a 6-week old federal law enforcement action in Massachusetts would be old news by now, but the New York Times can't get enough of it. This one focuses on a husband - and illegal immigrant himself - of a woman who was deported after the raid, and father of two children, one born in Honduras and one in Texas and thus an American citizen. For humanitarian reasons, the husband was allowed to remain here to care for the children and stir up trouble. Hopefully, the wife is telling her sob story all over Honduras right now, discouraging others from coming up. Ironically, it appears that it's America's law and order that attracted the couple to sneak in here illegally.
Mr. Mancía said he and his wife had decided to leave their home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for their safety, because criminal gangs used the streets as a combat zone. Ms. Amaya’s sister was on a public bus returning from Christmas shopping on Dec. 23, 2004, when gang gunmen shot it up, killing her and 27 other passengers, he said.
Well why don't we just let in the entire country of Honduras then - everyone, of course, but those bad men who shot up the bus, at least all the cute little families. What harm could they do, anyway? At least until Mr. Mancia's grandkids start shooting up buses here because they're still working in factories for $7.50 an hour.

18 April 2007

Supreme Court Upholds Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

The court's putative conservative majority held together long enough to permit Congress to outlaw partial-birth abortions. This is a victory for the concept of self-government, which is a solid conservative principle. But it stands as a rather pathetic monument to the ineptitude and impotence of the conservative movement in the 21st century. For here we are, after 6 years of Republicans in charge of all three branches of government, and all we have to show for it is a tax cut and a ban on partial birth abortions.

Except for the most blatant quota systems at public universities, affirmative action remains institutionalized throughout the business world and educational systems. Not only are our irrationally high rates of legal immigration still in force but we seem stuck with insanely high illegal immigration. The size of the government has not shrunk one iota - the era of big government has come back to life! Instead of rolling back government, we have embarked on a horridly costly and pointless war that has discredited every major Republican politician who, out of party loyalty, has been compelled to support it.

As far as the partial-birth abortion issue itself, I'm a bit ambivalent. While it seems like a particularly barbaric practice, it's not much more gruesome than a standard procedure on a fully formed fetus. Smothering a newborn infant strikes me as far more humane. But while infanticide is a long way off (though I'd have thought the same about gay marriage just a few years ago), the abortion genie was let out of the bottle a long time ago, and we're never going to get it back in. There's little point in conservatives continuing to fight that battle - it only serves to antagonize and alienate many who would otherwise be allies.

14 April 2007

Imus Fans - The Ball Is in Your Court

I'm not an Imus fan, though I do listen maybe one morning a month, so I'll slightly miss not having that option. (I only listen to the radio on my 25-minute morning and evening commutes. I usually listen to WFUV (what I would call aging-hippie radio) or the NPR station WNYC. Both are commercial free - which is key, as radio commercials are particularly excruciating). So other than my horror at the media's continued insistence on giving Al Sharpton a platform, I have no dog in this fight. But Imus does have fans, who surely must be very upset about losing one of their few daily pleasures.

They should fight back. Death threats aimed at Al Sharpton are, of course, inappropriate, however tempting. But what to do? They should refuse to listen to the replacement show, Mike and the Mad Dog, and not be charmed by these hosts' support of Imus. They ought to organize boycotts of sponsors who abandoned Imus. But perhaps most effective would be to monitor black radio and publicize anti-white bias. This should not be hard to do - black airwaves are filled with bile against whites, but our suicidal society has become nearly incapable of recognizing it for what it is. The current strategy - of pointing to black entertainers being disparaging of other blacks - is not going to do it. No one minds self-defacing humor, however foul. But the Imus crucifixion clearly establishes a rule that you cannot speak ill of another race or sex. Well, finding black activists and feminists who speak venomously against whites and men on the air should not be hard. So the ball is in Imus fans' court - if they want their Imus-in-a-Morning back, they have some work to do to get it back.

11 April 2007

The Duke Boys - Free at Last

MSNBC felt compelled to give wall-to-wall coverage to their firing of Don Imus, which is really important news, and did not so much as mention the dropping of charges against the three Duke Lacrosse players. The despicable Keith Olbermann did manage to sneak in a condemnation of Bill O'Reilly for having the audacity to speak out against illegal immigrants, but covering the denoument of one of the most notorious racial-witch hunts of the decade would apparently besmirch MSNBC's politically-perfect cred.

CNN, on Paula Zahn's show, performed an appropriate media mea culpa, featuring Howie Kurtz, but does anyone believe they wouldn't do exactly the same thing again? Who knows, perhaps they learned their lesson.

Duke's president Brodhead should resign, since he helped spearhead the frenzy by not only refusing to support the players but by cancelling the Lacrosse team's season and suspending the players indefinitely. Nifong himself must be disbarred, and the state attorney general's harsh words will serve as a signal to the NC Bar to do just that.

Imus the Terrible

With all due respect to his fans, the world will not be diminished one iota by Don Imus's departure from the airwaves. He's a shock jock who has worn his pathetic need for respectability on his sleeve, and thus delivers little more than low-grade sophomoric humor combined with low-brow sophomoric commentary. MSNBC could afford to let Imus go since his ratings weren't all that great (actually doing worse than CNN's American Morning in 1Q07, which is pretty pathetic) and of course getting trounced by Fox.

It will be more of a challenge for CBS radio, since there is zero chance they will be able to recover his numbers in the morning. It's also likely that firing Imus from the radio will lead to a major backlash among his listeners, who will not be happy that their favority morning show has been canceled. Mornings are generally miserable times for most working people, and suddenly losing the one thing that makes you smile is rather harsh. Imus listeners are probably mostly Republicans, but this will only serve to harden their resolve not to be pushed around by minorities and politically correct scolds. Not to mention the galvanizing effect that TV appearances by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have on the electorate, savvy Republican strategists - if there are any left standing these days - should be able to take full advantage.

Back from Glasgow

I had a little long-weekend trip to Glasgow, Scotland. I didn't really get to see too much of the city, but I had a good walk around the town for about 2 hours on Good Friday, and it's a pleasant little place. It has the feel of a generally working-class city undergoing some mild yuppification.

One of the more amusing moments was running into the "Hope not Hate" bus rally and seeing Gordon Brown deliver a little "Hope not Hate" peptalk. "Glasgow is saying there is no place for racism in our society. There is no place for discrimination and there is no place for prejudice. There is no place for bigotry." And I would concur as any would-be bigot would have to be pretty dedicated to even locate a minority to abuse. However, it is kind of nice to be in a city where one can walk around at night with little danger of being a crime victim.

03 April 2007

Social Security - Bulls and Bears

Randall Parker posts a most bearish take on Social Security and the upcoming Baby Boom retirements, quoting Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and predictions that these entitlements will add up to 19% of GDP in coming decades.

Meanwhile, Dean Baker, the annoyingly liberal but generally level-headed economist, chides the Washington Post for scare mongering on Social Security, insisting that projected revenues along with the trust fund have us covered thru 2049.

So I don't know what to think. What's pretty clear is that tax increases for Social Security will be necessary once revenues dip below benefits. The trust fund is a bit of a sham. The T-Bills that are purchased on behalf of the trust can only be redeemed from general revenues, which means less money for everything else. Baker points out that the biggest fear - that Medicare payments will spiral out of control - is fundamentally a problem with our health care system, not medicare.

Drugs that can effectively treat heart disease are desperately needed. Unfortunately, the latest miracle drug crashed and burned in trials, so miracle drugs are still a bit off. We also need a miracle in our economy - I don't think legions of dry-wallers, food-preppers, and lawn-waterers are going to be able pay for 20 million baby boomers' bypass operations.