A salute to the fighting men of the U.A.E.

I didn't know that the U.A.E. Had combat troops in Afghanistan until I ran into this article on the BBC this evening. Am I pleased to finally see an Arabic/Muslim nation move into action and get boots on the ground to help secure the situation. Another pleasing factor is when you get to read something like this:

As fellow Muslims, they get a warm reception from the villagers.

"At first I thought these were American soldiers and I wanted them to leave but when they said they were Muslims I knew they were our brothers," a young Afghan man says.

Hajji Fazlullah, another Afghan villager, says: "The Arab troops come in our country and our village, we are very happy."

And this:

"And we try to convince the people about the US, about British. They came here to give you peace."

Oorah U.A.E.

The New York Times

Holding no punches

Wow, I am reading Townhall.com for the first time in more than a week and it seems that last week Doctors Sowell and Williams held no punches at all. They went after Spitzer, Obama, Hillary, the POTUS, and the ethanol industry.

On Spitzer, Dr Sowell "served" him like this

Many in the media refer to Eliot Spitzer as some moral hero who fell from grace. Spitzer was never a moral hero. He was an unscrupulous prosecutor who threw his power around to ruin people, even when he didn't have any case with which to convict them of anything.

Because he was using his overbearing power against businesses, the anti-business left idolized him, just as they idolized Ralph Nader before him as some sort of secular saint because he attacked General Motors.

Linking that to Obama

Currently, various facts are belatedly beginning to leak out that give us clues to the character of Barack Obama. But to report these facts is being characterized as a "personal" attack.

Barack Obama's personal and financial association with a man under criminal indictment in Illinois is not just a "personal" matter. Nor is his 20 years of going to a church whose pastor has praised Louis Farrakhan and condemned the United States in both sweeping terms and with obscene language.

The Obama camp likens mentioning such things to criticizing him because of what members of his family might have said or done. But it was said, long ago, that you can pick your friends but not your relatives.

Then finishes the whole piece with absolute "pwnage"!

Obama chose to be part of that church for 20 years. He was not born into it. His "personal" character matters, just as Eliot Spitzer's "personal" character matters -- and just as Hillary Clinton's character would matter if she had any.

Then Dr Williams opens up a can of whooped () by going on the Ethanol Industry

Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn't make it in a free market. That's why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers. In fact, there's a double tax -- one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

There's something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil? Brazilian ethanol, by the way, is produced from sugar cane and is far more energy efficient, cleaner and cheaper to produce.

He goes for the kill right over here

It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

The Big Sticks

Earlier today, more "stuff" came out of senator Pelosi:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the nation's ability to lead the world depends on its morality, not military might. "We will begin to reassert that moral authority by attempting to override the president's veto next week," said Pelosi, D-Calif.

I have to disagree with that, as I am a firm believer in "Big Stick Diplomacy".

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."

I beg your pardon!

*I am sorry, but you have to be doing something to be hard working...
Anyhow, move on...

Iraq progress report

Courtesy of Blackfive.net


They mentioned this article from the New York Times*:
Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics

*The Snake Advocate doesn't take anything the New York Times seriously, but has to admit that this article had some interesting statements. Take this one for example:

Violent struggle against the United States was easy to romanticize at a distance.

“I used to love Osama bin Laden,” proclaimed a 24-year-old Iraqi college student. She was referring to how she felt before the war took hold in her native Baghdad. The Sept. 11, 2001, strike at American supremacy was satisfying, and the deaths abstract.

Now, the student recites the familiar complaints: Her college has segregated the security checks; guards told her to stop wearing a revealing skirt; she covers her head for safety.

“Now I hate Islam,” she said, sitting in her family’s unadorned living room in central Baghdad. “Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.”

So I guess the whole rhetoric of that the war on terror is creating more terrorists, isn't really conclusive at all.

Economic Facts and Fallacies

I've been interested in getting this book from Amazon.com for a while, and luckily Mr. Sowell had an interview on NRO discussing it.



Here is the rest of the interview.