Forget tougher punishments and hiring more police. The solution to crime and violence is on your plate. Hereâs how healthy food can reduce aggressive behaviour.
Heh, Let Them Eat Quiche!
Posted by: DanNY ||
10/01/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
"Schoenthaler didnât always use a placebo as a control measure and his group of test subjects wasnât always chosen at random. This criticism doesnât refute Schoenthalerâs research that nutrition has an effect on behaviour. It means most of his studies simply lack the scientific soundness needed to earn the respect of his colleagues."
Trash. Yet another journalist who doesn't understand the basic scientific method.
Every once in a while, a big Hollywood star or athlete will declare bankruptcy. News reports will note that the person earned, and somehow managed to spend, tens of millions of dollars. Most of us wonder, "How'd he do that?"
In the same vein, Americans Coming Together has come apart.
The pressure group was formed in 2003 with the goal of electing liberal congressional candidates and a liberal president in 2004. Financiers George Soros and Peter Lewis kicked in more than $38 million to get ACT, along with its sister group the Media Fund, up and running. ACT managed to blow through about $200 million during its brief existence.
But that cash was to no avail. President Bush was re-elected and Republicans expanded their numbers in the House and Senate, so Soros has decided to pull the plug. ACT's state offices are all closing, and most its employees were notified (by e-mail, no less) that their services were no longer needed.
ACT's spectacular failure should be a cautionary tale for the left: Big ideas beat big money. And while the left seems to have plenty of money to invest in political campaigns, new, palatable liberal ideas are more difficult to come by.
For example, back when ACT was being put together, billionaire Soros explained why he thought it was so critical. "America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," he told The Washington Post. That's why he saw the 2004 election as "a matter of life and death."
There's one liberal's version of a big idea: A United States bent on advancing traditional American interests and values is bad.
You might even call that idea "the Soros Doctrine," as Soros did in his book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy." Soros cast doubt on the idea that the American system is the best. In fact, one reason Soros considers Bush a threat to the entire planet is because the president thinks, "the world would benefit from adopting American values because the American model has demonstrated its superiority."
Well, we're almost a year removed from that election, and it went against Soros and ACT. Amazingly, the United States is still here, still serving as a beacon of hope to other countries, still leading the world forward.
Recall that just since the 2004 election we've seen Ukraine's Orange Revolution and Lebanon's Cedar Revolution. Both of those events drew support and inspiration from the United States. Today, both of those countries are moving forward toward freedom and democracy and away from totalitarianism.
The overwhelming majority of Americans agree that the U.S. is a great force for good in the world. We know our political system is the best yet devised. So ACT certainly couldn't have convinced many voters by using Soros' big idea. Are there any other liberal ideas it could have pulled out? Not really.
For years, conservatives have been proposing workable solutions to problems. Nearly a decade ago President Clinton signed a welfare-reform bill, which moved millions from welfare to work. It was conservatives who wrote that landmark legislation. Conservatives also led the battle to cut tax rates in 2001 and 2003, cuts that allowed the country to pull out of a recession and get our economy growing again.
Today, conservatives are pushing plans to reform Social Security. The venerable retirement program will go belly-up in a few years unless we act. Conservatives want to create Personal Retirement Accounts, which would allow workers-even those who earn minimum wage-to build a retirement nest egg they can count on. Liberals strongly oppose personal accounts, but they haven't offered any workable ideas of their own.
When Soros started backing ACT, he explained that, "money buys talent; you can advocate more effectively." Yes, but it's impossible to advocate successfully unless you have some practical ideas to promote.
Liberals are long on rhetoric, but short on solutions. That's why, for all its money, Americans Coming Together has fallen apart.
#1
I have no problem with Soros, et al spending their money on such things. The more they spend in this manner, the less they'll have to try (and fail, again!) to throw the next election.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/01/2005 18:09 ||
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Wow. I had forgotten her name - and her first warning shot editorial which started the movement to stop this elitist memorial to moral equivalency and appeasement. This woman rocks. The uninsane people of America owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Thx, Frank!
#3
"Anger can be very, very productive, as long as it's focused and you don't lose your mind."
OldSpook said something similar when we were baying for someone-or-other's blood. Along the lines of defeating them thoroughly, but calmly and coldly because it's the right thing to do, not in white hot anger. (Feel free to correct me, OS!)
PAKISTANI President Pervez Musharraf complains that his country is unfairly portrayed as a place where rape and other violence against women are rampant and frequently condoned. In fact, it deserves such a reputation. According to Pakistani human rights groups, thousands of attacks are reported every year, including gang rapes and "honor killings" of women who are accused of having affairs or who refuse an arranged marriage. Most of these attacks go unpunished. So retrograde are Pakistan's laws that there are more than 1,500 women in prison as a result of rapes -- they were prosecuted for adultery -- while arrests of men occur in only about 15 percent of reported cases.
Gen. Musharraf, too, deserves the reputation he is earning as a ruler who cares more about how he is perceived in the West than in implementing the policies he claims to espouse, or even in speaking the truth. The general, who seized power in a coup six years ago, has reneged on promises to retire from the army or restore democracy. He has not carried out the reform of Islamic religious schools that he promised in 2001. He has allowed the extremist Afghan Taliban movement to base itself in Pakistan's western provinces with virtual impunity. He has repeatedly insisted, almost certainly falsely, that Osama bin Laden is not in Pakistan. All the while he has gone on collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year from the Bush administration, which accepts his words and ignores most of his actions.
Gen. Musharraf claims to champion a "moderate Islam" that respects the rights of women. But when Mukhtar Mai, a victim of a gang rape whose attackers have not been punished, tried to visit the United States earlier this year, the president barred her from leaving the country. In an interview with The Post last month, he claimed that he had relented. But then he said this: "You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped." This statement was, as Pakistani activists and the Canadian government soon pointed out, an outrageous lie. There is only one known case of a rape victim moving to Canada, a doctor who was assaulted by a military officer. A far more common outcome for rape victims is to be ostracized by their communities or jailed.
When Gen. Musharraf's statement provoked an uproar, he responded with another lie: He claimed that he had never made it. In fact, a recording of him speaking is available on The Post's Web site, washingtonpost.com. His words are quite clear. "These are not my words, and I would go to the extent of saying I am not so silly and stupid to make comments of this sort," the general said. Well, yes, he is.
Posted by: john ||
10/01/2005 14:35 ||
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Dubbed President George W. Bushâs âimage queenâ, Karen Hughes is back in the US after embarking on a tour of Arab countries where conventional wisdom claims that anti-Americanism is second nature.
The fact that Ms. Hughes, now in charge of something called public diplomacy at the State Department, chose the Arab region for her maiden voyage shows that she shares that analysis. But how true is that claim? Are Arabs the most anti-American peoples on earth?
Let us start with the tangibles. The United States is by far the largest pole of attraction for Arab foreign investment at all levels, from public sector funds to small private savings accounts. The most conservative estimates put the value of Arab assets in the US at over $4.5 trillion, which means that the Arab countries are just behind Britain, Japan and Holland as the biggest investors in the US economy.
The US is also one of the top three trading partners of virtually all Arab states. In fact, many US-made goods, cars for example, that do not sell anywhere else, still enjoy robust markets in Arab countries.
There are other facts. The US has been the No. 1 foreign tourist destination for Arabs since the 1980s and, has remained so despite restrictions imposed on Arab visitors after 9/11. Arabs, from all walks of life and different political sensibilities, also love to send their children to study in the US. And when it comes to seeking medical treatment, no country competes with the US in attracting well-heeled Arabs.
If she took time to stroll in Arab capitals, Ms. Hughes would have been struck by the ubiquitous presence of things American. It is not possible to spend a holiday in most Arab capitals without moving out of the orbit of American franchised hotels, restaurants, tourist services, and banks. A stroll in modern shopping malls would reveal a population wearing American-style clothing, including baseball caps, with Motorola mobile phones pressed to ears, as New Orleans jazz plays in the background.
As for cinema 80 percent of films shown in Arab countries are made in Hollywood. And if Ms. Hughes watched television she would have seen that more than 70 percent of what Arab TV, including those regarded as âobsessively anti-Americanâ, broadcast is US-made footage. There are more than two dozen English dailies in the Arab world, all using the American version of the language. Go through them and you will see that much of the material comes from American agencies and syndication services.
Even Arabic-language newspapers serve as outlets for American journalism. More than half of all major articles in the two main pan-Arab daily newspapers come from the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Time magazines, among other American publications. As a result, some American columnists have become household names in most Arab countries.
A visitor is also bound to be struck by the number of Arab decision-makers with American educational or business backgrounds and/or connections.
Only God and the Immigration and Naturalization service in the US would know how many Arabs hold the so-called âgreen cardâ or even dual Arab-US citizenship. With the possible exception of Libya, which has a weird regime, and Syria, whose leaders fear they may be targeted for âregime changeâ, almost all Arab countries are ruled by regimes well disposed toward the US. Sixteen of the 21 member states of the Arab League host some American military presence. The FBI maintains offices in at least 12 Arab capitals.
So, where did the impression that the Arabs are seething with anti-Americanism come from? Isnât it possible that the Arabs may be sharing the anti-American craze produced in the West, including the United States? Arenât the Arabs, as is the case with other products, importing anti-Americanism?
Go through Arab newspapers and you will see that the bulk of the material that could be classified as anti-Bush and/or anti-American is translated from American sources. Stroll in the streets where books and video and audio tapes are on sale at the curbsides and you will see that 90 percent of the items vilifying America come from American, French, and British authors. No Arab anti-American has produced anything like the conspiracy theories that American intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Scott Ritter, Seymour Hersh, and Edward Said, to name a few, have put on the markets everywhere, including the Arab world.
At any given time one can find a horde of American activists visiting the region to urge the natives to hate America.
⢠Two years ago a group of Americans appeared in Arab capitals to stop people in the bazaars to âapologize for The Crusadesâ, although the US didnât even exist when those wars were fought between Europe and the Middle East.
⢠Before the liberation of Iraq scores of Americans came to Baghdad to offer themselves as âhuman shieldsâ for Saddam Hussein. No Arab was foolish enough to do that.
⢠This month a group of 30 American professors turned up in Tehran and Damascus to describe the US as âa rogue state on the rampageâ.
⢠A lady named Bianca Jagger, presented as ambassador for UNICEF and âa leading thinkerâ, has been in the region telling astonished audiences that the US was the source of all evil in the world. (Incidentally, I thought the UNICEF was not supposed to be political.)
⢠One American professor recently published an op-ed in the New York Times relating his trip to Iran where he was âdisappointedâ to see that students not only did not hate George W. Bush but, horror of horrors, also craved for an American-style democracy instead of an Islamist utopia.
⢠The anti-Bush demonstrations the Arabs watch on TV take place in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Seattle, not in any Arab city.
⢠A friend, who happens to be a minister in an Arab state, was saddened this summer when, spending holidays with his family in the US as he had always done since student days, he had to quarrel with an old American schoolmate. The point of the dispute was that the American insisted that the US was an âevil empireâ while the Arab believed that it could be a force for reform in the Middle East.
⢠Last month, an Iraqi journalist gave up his American scholarship and returned home because faculty members in the US university he attended made him feel âguilty for having been liberated from Saddam Hussein.â
⢠A Kuwaiti friend withdrew his son from an American university to âprotect him from (being) brainwashed into hating the United States.â
⢠(And did you know that the US is the only country where the late Khomeini who could hardly write a paragraph without making some grammatical error, is treated as a philosopher with a whole university course devoted to his âphilosophyâ? Not even in Iran where Khomeinism is in power anyone would dare make such a ridiculous offer to students.)
Many polls have been conducted to show that the Arabs are anti-American. A more interesting poll would aim at finding out how many Americans are so afflicted by self-loathing as to devote their energies to a systematic vilification of their nation.
The best that Ms. Hughes could do is to help make available to the Arabs the other side of the American debate; to show that not all Americans share Chomskyâs belief that the US planned to kill six million Afghans solely to build a pipeline from Central Asia. Her aim should be to help Arabs understand America in all its contradictions, not necessarily to adore it. There are many issues on which the Arabs disagree with the United States. But most Arabs donât see that as a sign of anti-Arabism on the part of the US. Ms. Hughes should not regard it as a sign of anti-Americanism on the part of Arabs.
It is one thing to enjoy the imports and investments of America. It is quite another thing to stand behind America as it works to eliminate extremist Islam-which is arguably the biggest threat to our survival. I notice that America's foreign policies are not put in the spotlight in this attempt to whitewash Arab public opinion about Americans. Run your surveys on Arab public opinion on the War on Terror, on Iraq, on Israel's sovereignty. Unless we're prepared to turncoat on these issues, Arabs will continue to claim terror is a provocation by Americans that Arabs must challenge (translation: kill Americans for).
That said, what the comments above say about American intellectuals and movie stars is true. And those American journals so widely appreciated in Arabia are the same ones Rantburgers regularly cite as conduits for anti-American drivel. There is no doubt a huge slice of self-loathing in America. But to claim that anti-Americanism by Arabs is a myth is to imitate the ostrich Europe.
#2
A myth, eh? That's reassuring. I thought all the celebration in the streets whenever something even remotely bad happened to the US actually meant something. Same with all the fatwahs and talk of the Great Satan. Glad that's been cleared up. Nothing to see here. Just move along
#3
good points Jules, but I found the article interesting. I find it easy to believe that the source of anti-Americanism in the Arab world did not come from within the Arab world itself. Their villian, or Satan, if you will, has always been the Jews. It wasn't until recently that they actually began to hate us. Their beef with us today is really based on the idea that the good ol' Zionist Cabal is pulling our puppet strings.
Until the Muslim world gets off their addiction of blaming the Jews for everything and learns to move beyond the milk-blood of revenge of humiliation, they will never succeed in the modern world.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
