Fresh Tasty Ideas

I would get sick of blogging about positive economic news - there’s been a lot of it recently - but I can’t ever let the democrats forget that they opposed the tax cuts which triggered the economic growth. When will these people just admit they were flat out wrong?

The US GDP growth rate was revised up for the third quarter, from 3.8 to 4.3 percent. Simply put, a GDP growth rate of over 4% is phenomenal for a country with an established economy. Not to mention that the effects of hurricanes Rita, Katrina, and Wilma are not noticeable. The growth isn’t built out of government expenditures, but consumer spending, which grew at 4.2 % (revised from 3.9%). Consumer confidence rose too.

Defeatists who are bound and determined to find something to gripe about in the Bush economy like to point to the housing bubble. In California, the bubble talk is real. But new data for October shows housing starts on the rise, and at a record pace. I suppose as long as the growth is sustained, naysayers can always foresee doom, and it doesn’t make any difference whether it comes true or not.

Thanks to Ex-Donkey for the group of links.

Update: The NY Times can hardly bear the economic boon, looks for a negative spin.

GDP, Economy

The original design for the Flight 93 memorial was an affront to our nation and the nearly 3000 people who died on September 11, 2001. The memorial, entitled “Crescent of Embrace” was in fact one giant crescent. Given that the crescent is a promiment symbol in Islam, and that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by self-professed Muslims, there was a public (read: conservative) uproar over the design. Did sanity prevail?

Maybe not. The memorial has been redesigned, and yet again, we have funny little coincidences popping up all over. The first and most obvious “mistake” is the translucent blocks incorporated into the memorial. Forty Americans died when Flight 93 rammed into the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvannia. Yet, the redesign has 44 of these blocks dotting the pathway to the crash site. That’s right, one block for each American, and one block for each terrorist. Touching, isn’t it?

I honestly would think some of the subtle little coincidences just that - if not for the obvious giveaway with the translucent blocks. And why are there so many of these coincidences?

Whoever is doing the design/redesign for this Flight 93 memorial obviously has a special place in their heart for the murdering terrorists. It’s going to take at least three design attempts to get a design which doesn’t honor terrorists alongside dead American civilians. Honestly, this just calls for WTF?

Update: Added to The Political Teen’s Open Trackback Thursday

Flight 93, Memorial, Islam, Terrorism, September 11, 9/11

Ever since the UN’s inception, it has failed at virtually every task it was created to handle. Mostly, the UN idly sits by sipping chardonnay while genocide, starvation, and religious war (mostly of the Islamic flavor, the Sudan for example) - rages. Sometimes they jump into the fray, but usually that just worsens the situation - Congo rapists anyone?.

But hey, what does a half century of utter failure matter? Let’s overlook those pesky details and hope that when the UN achieves its new goal of controlling the internet (peacekeeping is so last century), they’ll do much better.

As any self-respecting liberal can tell you: if a sprawling and bloated multi-national governmental beaucracy isn’t getting the job done, give it more responsibility! Yeah!

Kofi, UN, Internet, Beaucracy

From OpinionJournal on Tuesday, November 29. Link hat-tip to Ex-Donkey.

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Lieberman, Iraq

It may seem trivial, but here’s yet another example of self-hating lefties doing anything in their power to strip any meaning at all from our country’s heritage. Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, has to “fight” for the ability to refer to the big tree with all the pretty lights as a Christmas tree. That’s right, its politically correct name is the holiday tree. Isn’t it ridiculous? For God’s sake, everyone calls it a Christmas tree, why can’t people who work at the government call it a Christmas tree? A similar tiff has come up over Alabama’s license plates which boldly proclaim “God Bless America.”

You know what else mentions God? The Declaration of Independence states that our rights are not given by the government, but by God. The horror! The fact is, there is no way to seperate out the Judeo-Christian God from America’s heritage without destroying the framework of our democracy. Maybe that is the ultimate goal of those who are now concerned only with trees and license plates.

God, Holiday Tree, In God We Trust, Alabama License Plate, Hastert

One topic I’ve been pondering of late, is the issue of absolute versus relative morality. It won’t take much time reading this blog to find out I’m predisposed towards the former case. However, I try to be open to reconsidering things and not closing my mind just because at one point I formed an opinion. So, in that spirit, a friend presented me with a hypothetical situation which he felt demonstrated how absolute morality can fall apart:

A terrorist has barricaded himself inside a building in downtown New York and has taken one hostage as protection. The terrorist is going to detonate a nuclear device shortly which will likely kill hundreds of thousands of people in the city. As a sniper in the adjacent builing (you know you only have seconds until detonation), you have a shot at the terrorist, but because of the angle through the window, you know the shot will kill the hostage as well.

Now this seems quite similar to Kant’s dilemma in which he must either break a promise to a friend or allow a man to drown. It’s not like this example is relegated to ivory towers either. In World War 2, the United States firebombed Tokyo (and other cities) and then used the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The idea was to save lives by forcing Japan to surrender quickly, rather than losing more lives by fighting a protracted war. In retrospect, the strategy worked - we now know Japan was willing to fight to the bitter end.

But back to our specific case. I don’t know many people who would allow thousands of people to die instead of just one if given the opportunity to choose. Does this prove the absurdity of absolute morality? That depends on how you interpret the situation. If we interpret the choice to kill both terrorist and hostage as “right” and inaction as “wrong” then yes, we have destroyed our absolute framework. Because normally, we would not kill an innocent person. But, in this situation, the right thing to do was kill one person and save many, right?

There is another interpretation I think. The sniper has two choices, and one must be made. Either choice results in the death of at least one innocent person. The situation does not have a morally right solution. So, in the end, the lesser of two evils must be selected. Does that mean that absolute right and wrong don’t exist? I don’t think so. What do you think?

Absolute Morality, Relative Morality, Kant

For years, Yasser Arafat empowered and inspired Palestinian terrorist attacks. He also rejected the Oslo accords which granted his Palestinian state 95% of their demands. He was perhaps the single greatest impediment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Yet, when he died, a reporter from the BBC was driven to tears:

When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry…

This is the extent of the BBC’s impartiality. I would venture a guess that the death of Ariel Sharon would not receive such heartfelt attention from the news organization. To the credit of the BBC, they did “uphold a complaint” against the reporter, but only after hundreds of complaints.

When it comes to reporting on terrorism and Palestine, the BBC has an established record of bias. After the July 7 bombings in London, the BBC purposefully went back and edited out the word “terrorist” from any reports (I wonder if a guy named Winston was in charge of that). Various captions of Palestinians with AK-47s and explosives strapped to themselves refer to them as “freedom fighters.”

BBC, Terrorism, Palestine, Arafat, Sharon, Bias

There’s good news out of Iraq today. Michael Moore’s brave freedom fighters have heroically slaughtered 31 women and children at a toy giveaway. Praise be to these fearless Iraqi minutemen and may their numbers grow until they bring justice to their homeland.

It’s just a different perspective folks. Get off your moral high horse and stop condeming this suicide bomber for destroying a crowd of kids and their mothers. If you would only seek to understand, rather than judge, we’d all appreciate it. Especially the dead people.

Moore, Freedom Fighters, Iraq, Terrorism, Islam

I was shocked to find out today that the UK has a “television tax” which applies to any household that has a TV. The annual tax is about 150 pounds or $260, and it goes towards keeping the BBC up and running.

But, should you neglect payment of your TV tax, you will be sorry. The British government employs guys like the one pictured here to drive around and snoop out anyone watching TV. After spying on you, he’ll knock on your door and ask to see your license. If you don’t have one, you get hit with a fine.

A few weeks ago, Tony Blair’s measure to detain a suspected terrorist for 90 days (instead of only fourteen) was defeated. People cited concern over the UK turning into a police state. Yet they are apparently unconcerned about government agents sitting outside your house monitoring your TV usage - and God knows what else.

Taxes, UK, TV

Iraq’s President Talabani returned from Iran today, citing support from Ahmadinejad’s regime to help fight the raging terrorist activities in Iraq. Ayatollah Ali Kahmeni remarked:

The Islamic Republic of Iran holds the American government responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people and all the crimes and assassinations now being committed in Iraq.

The translation: Iranian terrorists streaming across the border are the fault of America, but Iran will do everything in its power to defeat these Iranian terrorists.

Right.

Iran, Iraq, Islam, Terrorism, Jihad