The Sound of Silence

With the ruling Junta's, excuse me, Mullahs' suppression of the news media in Iran, about the only source of real-time information on events in that country are bloggers and citizen journalists. As such, it's difficult to assess what is going on, because as Michael Totten of Commentary says, "blogging and other forms of 'citizen journalism' are prone to sensationalism..."

That said, there is one report of a street demonstration yesterday that, if true, deserves wider attention. I quote portions of an eye witness account below, but it's important to note that the unique nature of the protest is verified by a separate blogger here (see the 4th sentence of the 1st paragraph of the email quoted therein).  H/t for all of this to Michael Totten of Commentary Contentions.

"What I saw today was the most elegant scene I had ever witnessed in my life. The huge number of people were marching hand in hand in full peace. Silence. Silence was everywhere. There was no slogan. No violence. Hands were up in victory sign with green ribbons. People carried placards which read: Silence. Old and young, man and woman of all social groups were marching cheerfully. This was a magnificent show of solidarity. Enghelab Street which is the widest avenue in Tehran was full of people ... The estimate is about 2 million people."

Even if 2 million is an overstatement, there was clearly a huge mass of people, all marching in complete silence. I cannot imagine any more powerful display of protest. It is no wonder, as the witness states, that in the face of the sheer seriousness exhibited by the protestors that the armed thugs of the Mullahs, the riot police and Basij militia, cowered behind closed doors, watching the silent protestors walk by.

I am reminded of the story of Elijah, a prophet of Israel, being chased and hunted, pleading for God to save him. On a lonely cliff face he looks for God in Nature's acts of power and might, first in a great wind that splits mountains, then in an earthquake, and then a furious fire. And yet he does not find God in any of them, but only in what is described next: the "sound of sheer silence (1 Kings 19:12)."

It is unclear at this point what will result from this unexpected revolution in the streets of Iran. But if God is in the sound of sheer silence, then this brave demonstration in Iran was most certainly of God, which ought to concern the Mullahs a great deal. A Polish Pope had no need of armies to help bring down a communist regime, and Iran's fascistic leaders might find their own brutal purposes and heavily armed minions insufficient to the occasion.

The witness quoted above also remarked how surprised he was that these demonstrators were so politically mature and reasonable in their protest. They were, but more important they were also deeply religious, in the best sense of that word, and we can only hope, and pray, that Allah will in fact be merciful to them in this hour of need.

My Health Care Proposal

The Congressional Budget Office has now weighed in on the probable costs of the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill, i.e. universal single payer government run national health care. It is $1 trillion. It could be higher, but the CBO can't say for sure at this point, because neither Kennedy or Dodd or the President or any other Democrat currently running our government cares to give out all the details of this plan to massively restructure 1/5th of the American economy.

The most commonly cited reason for this health care bill, repeated over and over, is that our current system fails to insure 45 million people. That's a lot of people, and I hesitate to even describe the terrible consequences they face when they get sick. Believe it or not, they have to do what every one did back in the dark ages of the 1920's and actually pay for any medical services they receive. Of course, they aren't paying $1,000 per month for an average family insurance plan like the rest of us, but that is small comfort when the rapacious health care industry surrounds them, demanding payment.

As deeply as I feel for these people, however, I wonder: isn't $1 trillion a tad excessive to fix this utter injustice of our current system? As an alternative, I might propose that we simply pay the annual premium of a standard individual health insurance policy for each and everyone of these poor, benighted creatures. At $500 per policy, that works out to a hefty $22.5 billion. After the first year, however, costs should go down as the 45 million uninsured are actually identified rather than just extrapolated in accordance with the inner desires of the extrapolators, and I suspect the reasons they are not insured might indicate something well short of the national nightmare envisioned by our leaders today.

In this era of solving problems with nothing less than $1 trillion of taxpayer dollars, such a solution as I propose might well be a refreshing change for Washington and a welcome relief for the taxpayers. It is true that my proposal at base is just another costly government boondoggle, but I think if we are going to throw money away, we ought to at least do it in billions rather than trillions.

Re: Iran and the Structure of Libery

As a follow up to Whit's excellent post below, I post this.

The money quote from the Basij militia: A woman who was trying to cross the avenue was shoved onto the sidewalk by a member of the Basij militia, who spat at her, "We will kill those of you who come into the street!" As she walked away, she exclaimed in disbelief, "They steal our vote and then they talk to us like that?"

No such spatting at the citizens occurred from the Army conscripts that Whit talked about.

Coincidence? I think not.

Iran and the Structure of Freedom

A little history, perhaps? The 2nd Amendment is the topic, but we will get to Iran soon.

The Supreme Court recently held that the 2nd Amendment enshrined an individual right to bare arms for the citizens of our Republic. But the most relevant part to this post is where the 2nd Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State ..."

What does this mean? What is a "well regulated Militia" anyway? It is an army composed of part-time soldiers, whose responsibilities would include keeping the public peace and enforcing the laws.  For us cynics, then, a Militia was envisioned as the low paid, part-time thugs who would back up the governing power structure. Why then would the Founders describe such a motley group as "necessary to the security of a free state?"

Because they were afraid, not of public disorder, but of a greater evil, government disorder, aka governments that want to oppress freedom by the use of power rather than persuasion. If, the theory was, the only muscle available to a government to enforce its authority were part-time soldiers, then quelling rebellion caused by the over-reaching of government power would be impossible: the army of the state would not be willing to beat, shoot or otherwise do the dirty work necessary to prevent its fellow citizens (and perhaps even neighbors and families) from rising up against the state.

Today, we might be seeing a bit of that principle in Iran, albeit unconsciously. The Iranian Army is composed mostly of conscripts, i.e., involuntary soldiers, whose real empathy might lie with the people they were conscripted from. Note this quote from today's news:

"According to a Twitter post from inside Iran, the army announced it will not use force against Iranians, only foreigners. The army is made up of conscripts."

Of course, as all good totalitarian states have learned over the last century, it is important to have a cadre of true believers who are not of the people. And so it is in Iran: "The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij Militia, though, are separate armed forces loyal to the regime."

This fight in Iran may go a myriad of different ways. But on this point, I think it is instructive to note how prescient, thoughtful and deep are the sentiments of liberty in our Constitution, which we cast aside at our peril.

Especially if we cast them aside without even appreciating their relevance, as seems likely under the tutelage of our Ignorati Class of leaders today, who have neither experience nor education in the history of America, or of the essential rarity of freedom and liberty in this world that informed and energized the Founders.

Witness Unprotection Program: ABTA Goes to Washington

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The Pravda Hurts

When english lanquage Pravda, the Russian government run newspaper whose name translates as "Truth," makes more sense than 90% of the editorial pages in the U.S., then we are in trouble. Just about every line in this April 27, 2009 article burns with a mocking truth. A few excerpts.

The opening salvo: "It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people."

Then there is this exacting critique of the vast, degenerating American public educational system of the last few decades (mirroring my comments about the Ignorati Class about half way down in this article a month ago): "First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonald's burger or a BurgerKing (sic) burger than for their constitutional rights."

Eh? What's that? A Russian (!) extols knowledge of our constitutional rights as a mark of good education, while our education establishment throws millions of public dollars at "self-esteem" studies.

And then there is this passage on Religion and Churches in America, which goes a little over the top in seeing only a desire for political power in the last election cycle, but nevertheless highlights the strange scene of Christian preachers currying favor with the most irreligious Presidential ticket in my lifetime: "Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their ... top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another ... Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America."

There is more. The article pointedly names the Wall Street insiders who have engineered the biggest bail-out of the largest financial firms in the world as "Oligarchs," certainly a debatable point but not THAT debatable. It derides our pretensions at freedom and the rule of law when we allow a President to fire CEO's of private companies without even the color of a law enacted by elected representatives of Congress, and to otherwise declare to American citizens, "Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions."

To me, an interesting throw away line is when the article cites Marxism, and by implication European Socialism, as a "Western sponsored horror show" that Russia suffered under for "70 years." I have often wondered why we haven't heard more of such sentiments. Historically, Russia always seemed to have some perverse desire to be more Western, but China and the rest of Asia? Why would they ever be attracted to a romantic Western mythology of the 19th Century?

I don't know. But perhaps for the same reason that now, in the 21st Century, almost 4 generations removed, we Americans are seduced by those same quaint, parochial, old and tired ideologies of the last 100 years that have brought such misery and suffering to so many millions.

But there is more in this short Pravda article, much more, and you can find it here.

And as you read it, ask yourself this: can America ever hope for the same clarity from our own media as we see here in the formerly Marxist, currently oligarchical, Russian state run media? It doesn't seem likely.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Witness Unprotection Program: The Tyranny Debate

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Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: Offsetting Carbon Offsets

My glass of sherry finished, I turn to my dinner - a salad, alas. I dislike salads. Besides the fact that lettuce and celery serve no discernible nutritional purpose, it's all just so desultory, so lacking in - how do the French put it? pizzazz, I think is the term. But, a woman of my manner and means just cannot be wolfing down rare slabs of steak. It's just too impulsive.

I fork an olive and stop. The Discovery Channel is on and is going to tell me all about the Carbon Crisis. I have been worrying about just this issue for some time but really have very little idea what carbon actually is, much less what kind of a crisis looms before us. Even so, I am happy to say that I have been doing my part, meticulously checking fabric labels in clothes, studying the contents of cereal boxes and canned goods, checking under rugs and doorstops, to insure that carbon is not hunched down somewhere near me, waiting to bring the apocalypse with the rest of its fellows.

In one admittedly paranoid moment, I even took a nail file to my Faberge Opera Russe pattern silver. As all young ladies should know (but don't), 92.5% of Sterling Silver is .99999% pure silver, while the remaining 7.5% is some other metal. I understand that mathematics tells us that .99999% silver multiplied by 92.5% content is really only 92.49999075% silver, but that's mathematics and this is 925 Sterling Silver, and never the twain shall meet. Especially since mathematics is a concept and silver is a thing and concepts and things have always been a bit antagonistic, to put it mildly.

But I digress. In my worry over carbon, it suddenly occurred to me that in all my Sterling Silver, there is some 7.5% of something that no one seems to want to talk about. In the catalogues 925 Sterling Silver is up there like Las Vegas neon, whereas any information on 75 copper, for instance, is as nondescript as a lapel on a suit. References to other 75's, boron, zinc, platinum and silicon, are buried in the footnotes as well, although, if my catalogues are any evidence, Argentium metalloid germanium seems to be establishing some sort of reputation out there.

All I can say is I hope not. As my Mother used to say before she married my Father, standards are important, and I can't quite envision a world in which fine dinner flatware includes a majority of something called metalloid germanium.

But I digress. In sum, it occurred to me that I had no information whatsoever about the 75 in my Faberge 925 Sterling Silver dinner settings. Faberge is very professional, but they did get their start in eggs. Could a carton of carbon have fallen mistakenly into the smelting vat? So, I attacked a salad fork with a nail file, which didn't tell me much, except either nail files are not as sturdy as they ought to be or my 75 is in fact metalloid germanium, which bothers me because ...

But I will not digress. Paranoia disposed of, I realized that if I don't know what I am looking for, then there is little likelihood I will find it. Plato said that in some context or other, although I suspect he stole it from Socrates.

Now suddenly I am discovered by the Discovery Channel. What is carbon? will be answered in one concise hour by a slew of delightfully erudite people. I drop my olive in front of Frederick's (pronounced Froderick's) nose, and begin concentrating.

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And get worried. Discovery is beginning so far back Old Sol is not even a gleam in the eye of the galactic disk. I mean, it's as if someone asked me where I came from and I intoned, "In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth ... " Come on, people, let's at least skip on up to the Jurassic Era.

But time contracts swiftly after the first commercial, as I think Einstein predicted it would, and I begin to get the picture. Dinosaurs, immense pressure, and then oil and coal. So, that stuff is carbon. But then ... It's a gas? Like natural gas? Apparently not. Professor Tweed Jacket says it's a gas in the atmosphere that is destroying the world, it is .....

Carbon dioxide!?!

I exhale suddenly and catch myself, coughing. To solve the Carbon Crisis we need to drastically reduce carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the trees, my garden, the grasses in the meadow, the flora and fauna around and in the pond, they breathe carbon dioxide like oxygen. They live on the stuff.

Dark things begin to drop into place.

I keep a neat yard and a colorful garden. But this Spring, it's as if I cannot prune enough. After a heavy workout in the yard, the next afternoon, the very next afternoon, the bushes and trees flush that much more over the fence; the vines have halved again the distance to my house; and the vegetation has advanced its glacial movement over the walkways.

It's as if they know. It's as if they found out we plan to take their air away. It's as if they have decided not to stand by any longer, mute and patient. They have decided to act.

They have decided to offset us, all of us, before we offset their carbon.

I click off the TV in some vain hope they might not think I am the enemy. But it's too late. I glance down at Frederick, my black dog, mostly Labrador, and he seems strangely relaxed. So, I say, "I don't know why you're so comfortable. My people are only considering the possibility of taking away their air. We haven't done anything yet. You on the other hand go out every day, nonchalantly nose around their roots and then lift a leg or two on them. You think they'll let you off easy? Hah!"

He gives me a tired look that says, "Nice try," and then yawns and closes his eyes. He's right. They don't want him. Why not? And then the olive in front of his nose, my dinner that I dropped, fixes me with an unblinking gaze.

I realize: it's not the carbon. It's the salad. It's not what they breath, it's what we eat. Especially, I think, things like those baby tomatoes and little artichoke hearts. “The children,” laments the wind through the trees. “The children!”

I sigh with relief, shakily sipping a second sherry. If that's all they want, well then, no more salads. I could use a bit more beef in my diet anyway.

And the bovines in the meadow? Won’t they be upset that I am offsetting salads with steaks? Well, the fence thing really baffles them. By the time they figure some way around that, Frederick and I will be long gone from this carbon infested earth.

Witness Unprotection Program: Pelosi on the Record

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Witness Unprotection Program: GM & UAW

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