The Golden Gate

Over at Atlas Shrugs:

IRNA, the regime’s news agency reports that the disciplinary forces of the regime’s central intelligence issued a statement today, stating that: “As of Monday, these forces will meet very forcefully with wedding parties or any sort of celebration, that is disturbing and impinging on society’s order and calm.” The bulletin also read: “Certain people in their celebrations, immorally and degenerately block traffic (wedding processions) and disturb the peace of our compatriots; these people will be strongly dealt with.”

Khamnei: “These ‘goods’ will have to remain in their wrapping”

Mullah Khamnei specified, in a speech broadcast by ILNA, one of the regime’s many media outlets, that men are superior to women. While referring to women as “goods” or “commodities”, he stated: “Women’s hijab must be much more severe than those of men’s. Why? Because nature and women’s softness was at the core of ‘creation’ and IF we do not want society to lead to corruption and degenerate, we must keep these “goods” in their wrapping.”

And there’s a whole lot more like that.

Intel’s new chip design developed in Israel   
Get ready for even faster computers. Intel has unveiled its next generation micro-architecture, a multi-core processor which was completely developed at its facilities in Israel. According to top analysts, the Israeli design approach is sweeping through Intel, making them the company’s pre-eminent architects. More…

 

Global Democracy | US and Israel celebrate 20 years of free trade   
Twenty years and nearly $400 billion later, the US-Israel free trade pact is flourishing. Thanks to the bilateral trade agreement, Jaffa oranges have been replaced by other Israeli exports like computer chips and life-saving diagnostic tools that benefit the health and welfare of Americans. More…

 

Health | Israeli biotech leader asked by Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to develop treatment   
The Israeli biotechnology company Predix is already working on novel drugs for depression and Alzheimer’s in the pipeline. Now the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has turned to them to develop potential treatments for this debilitating genetic disease that affects 30,000 Americans. More…

And a while lot more…check it here.

An extensive list over at Instapundit.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Panic engulfed thousands of Shiites marching across a bridge in a religious procession Wednesday after rumors spread that a suicide bomber was about to attack, triggering a stampede that killed 648 people.
Scores jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the muddy Tigris River about 30 feet below, while others were crushed in the crowd. Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Full story here. Via Captain Ed

From WorldNetDaily: How Pakistan’s Dr. X sold al-Qaida Islamic bomb

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the “father of the Islamic bomb” and the “godfather of nuclear proliferation,” provided nuclear expertise, nuclear materials, and designs for atomic weapons to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to assist in the realization of the “American Hiroshima.”

The American Hiroshima plan represents al-Qaida’s plan for the nuclear destruction of the United States. It calls for the detonation of seven tactical nuclear devices in seven U.S. cities at the same time. Each device, according to the plan, must be equipped to produce an explosive yield of 10 kilotons to equal the 1945 blast in Hiroshima that killed 242,437 Japanese civilians.

go and read the rest now.

And this as well:

Al-Qaida’s prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents.

As first revealed last week in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence newsletter published by the founder of WND, Osama bin Laden is planning what he calls an “American Hiroshima,” the ultimate terrorist attack on U.S. cities, using nuclear weapons already smuggled into the country across the Mexican border along with thousands of sleeper agents.

The series of attacks is designed to kill 4 million, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history.

At least two fully assembled and operational nuclear weapons are believed to be hidden in the United States already, according to G2 Bulletin intelligence sources and an upcoming book, “The al-Qaida Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse,” by former FBI consultant Paul L. Williams.

The cities chosen as optimal targets are New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington, D.C. New York and Washington top the preferred target list for al-Qaida leadership.

Yes… all of it.

The Weekly Standard
See No Evil, Hear No Evil
From the September 5 / September 12, 2005 issue: What the 9/11 Commission narrative left out: Iraqis.
by Stephen F. Hayes
09/05/2005, Volume 010, Issue 47

AHMED HIKMAT SHAKIR IS A shadowy figure who provided logistical assistance to one, maybe two, of the 9/11 hijackers. Years before, he had received a phone call from the Jersey City, New Jersey, safehouse of the plotters who would soon, in February 1993, park a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center. The safehouse was the apartment of Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, who scorched his own leg while mixing the chemicals for the 1993 bomb.

When Shakir was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, his “pocket litter,” in the parlance of the investigators, included contact information for Musab Yasin and another 1993 plotter, a Kuwaiti native named Ibrahim Suleiman.

These facts alone, linking the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, would seem to cry out for additional scrutiny, no?

The Yasin brothers and Shakir have more in common. They are all Iraqis. And two of them–Abdul Rahman Yasin and Shakir–went free, despite their participation in attacks on the World Trade Center, at least partly because of efforts made on their behalf by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Both men returned to Iraq–Yasin fled there in 1993 with the active assistance of the Iraqi government. For ten years in Iraq, Abdul Rahman Yasin was provided safe haven and financing by the regime, support that ended only with the coalition intervention in March 2003.

Readers of The Weekly Standard may be familiar with the stories of Abdul Rahman Yasin, Musab Yasin, and Ahmed Hikmat Shakir. Readers of the 9/11 Commission’s final report are not. Those three individuals are nowhere mentioned in the 428 pages that comprise the body of the 9/11 Commission report. Their names do not appear among the 172 listed in Appendix B of the report, a table of individuals who are mentioned in the text. Two brief footnotes mention Shakir.

Why? Why would the 9/11 Commission fail to mention Abdul Rahman Yasin, who admitted his role in the first World Trade Center attack, which killed 6 people, injured more than 1,000, and blew a hole seven stories deep in the North Tower? It’s an odd omission, especially since the commission named no fewer than five of his accomplices.

Why would the 9/11 Commission neglect Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a man who was photographed assisting a 9/11 hijacker and attended perhaps the most important 9/11 planning meeting?

And why would the 9/11 Commission fail to mention the overlap between the two successful plots to attack the World Trade Center?

The answer is simple: The Iraqi link didn’t fit the commission’s narrative.

Go and read it all.

For 250 United States. Check it here.

…is no friend to free markets. I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Gets torn a new one. Man I enjoyed this.

Gaza pullout reaction.

Check it here and here.

Stunning. Leave Jooooooo! But give us jobs and healthcare. Charles Johsnon said it best: “we need a word for this kind of gall”. Indeed.

via Instapundit:

Utah Rave Update:

What is it about young people having a good time that riles officers over at the Utah County Sheriff’s Office so?

Worried about young people dancing to electronic music on private property in Spanish Fork Canyon, the Sheriff’s Office enlisted the Utah County Metro SWAT, the Utah Department of Corrections out of Salt Lake and Gunnison, the Department of Public Safety and its helicopter, as well as Provo SWAT. Except for those in undercover surveillance, this force of 90 was uniformed and ready to go.

“Uniformed” is putting it mildly. Decked in camouflage and helmets, they came with assault rifles and attack dogs. Revelers at Child’s ranch in Spanish Fork Canyon, more than two hours into their Aug. 20 rave, were ordered to turn off the music. Event organizers had the blessing of the property owner, a health department permit, and emergency medical personnel and security officers to check for alcohol and illegal drugs. What they didn’t have was the permission of the Utah County Commission. Such an egregious crime, you know.

Law-enforcement officers—so often overworked, underpaid and underappreciated—deserve the respect of citizenry. But based on personal accounts and digital-camera footage of that evening that have flooded the Internet since, even the most die-hard supporter of the local constabulary would feel remiss not asking questions. The event’s 250 attendees, who paid $20 per ticket to ensure that the evening’s event would be legitimate, secure, and offer outdoor toilets, allege the Utah County Sheriff’s Office unleashed what one observer described as “Iraq in Utah.” They allege petite women were kicked to the ground, rifles were pointed straight at people’s heads and faces, dogs were unleashed and tear gas dispensed. “We were treated as terrorists,” wrote one attendee. “They wanted to bust, hurt, and arrest us,” wrote another.

Utah County sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Gilbert denies anyone was beaten, bitten or treated unfairly. “I’m not going to speculate what would have happened if we went in without dogs or fewer officers. We were there to disband an illegal gathering where distribution of narcotics was going on.” Gilbert also said not a single soul has filed a complaint with his office alleging abuse that night. Any takers out there?

Go and read it all in the Salt Lake City Weekly

Via LGF:

The Other Jihad by Ralph Peters is dubbed a “must read” by Charles Johnson. I am inclined to agree–especially if you are unclear that we are at war and that that war goes way beyond Iraq, IEDs, and Humvees:

The mosque stood empty beside the road in a Christian town in Kenya. Funded by Saudis, it wasn’t meant for worshippers. It was meant to stake a claim.

The mosque annoyed the locals. Windows were broken. A goat grazed in the garbage-speckled yard. Yet that shabby mosque was part of an extremist campaign that threatens widespread strife in the years ahead.

On a trip to Kenya and Tanzania last month, I saw recently built mosques wherever I went. Even along the predominantly Muslim coast, there were far more mosques and madrassahs than the worshippers needed. I counted seven mosques along one street in a Mombasa slum - most of them new but neglected.

The construction boom is part of what my personal observation convinces me is “the other jihad,” the slow-roll attempt by fundamentalists from the Arabian Peninsula to reclaim East Africa for the faith of the Prophet. We dismiss Osama bin Laden’s dream of re-establishing the caliphate, Islam’s bygone empire, as madness. But Saudis, Yemenis, Omanis and oil-rich Gulf Arabs are every bit as determined as bin Laden to reassert Muslim domination of the lands Islam once ruled.

Do terrorist atrocities in the West, such as the attacks of September 11, 2001 and those in Bali, Madrid, Beslan, and London, help radical Islam achieve its goal of gaining power?

No, they are counterproductive. That’s because radical Islam has two distinct wings - one violent and illegal, the other lawful and political - and they exist in tension with each other. The lawful strategy has proven itself effective, but the violent approach gets in its way.

The violent wing is foremost represented by the world’s no. 1 fugitive, Osama bin Laden. The popular and powerful prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, represents the lawful wing. Even as “Al Qaeda has more state adversaries than nearly any force in history,” as Daniel C. Twining observes, political imams like Yusuf al-Qaradawi instruct huge audiences on Al-Jazeera television and visit with the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. As Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr skulks around Iraq, looking for a role, Ayatollah Sistani dominates the country’s political life.

Yes, terrorism kills enemies, instills fear, and disrupts the economy. Yes, it boosts morale and recruits non-Muslims to Islam and Muslims to Islamism. It creates an opportunity for Islamists to fight for their favorite causes, such as the elimination of Israel or the disengagement of coalition forces from Iraq. It provides, as Mark Steyn notes, intelligence information on the enemy. And yes, it prompts politically correct talk about Islam being a “religion of peace,” with Muslims portrayed as victims.

But for two main reasons, terrorism does radical Islam more harm than good.

First, it alarms and galvanizes Westerners. For example, the July 7 bombings took place during the G8 summit in Scotland, where world leaders were focused on global warming, aid to Africa, and macro-economic issues. In a London minute, the politicians then redirected their attention toward counterterrorism. Thus did the terrorists stiffen, as Mona Charen points out, “whatever small residue of resolve remains in flaccid Western civilization.”

More broadly, Mr. Twining notes, “Al Qaeda’s rise has produced the kind of great power entente not seen since the Concert of Europe took shape in 1815.” (Even the Madrid bombings, an apparent exception, led to a marked strengthening of counterterrorism measures by Spain and other European countries.)

Second, terrorism obstructs the quiet work of political Islamism. In tranquil times, organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain and the Council on American-Islamic Relations effectively go about their business, promoting their agenda to make Islam “dominant” and imposing dhimmitude (whereby non-Muslims accept Islamic superiority and Muslim privilege). Westerners generally respond like slowly boiled frogs are supposed to, not noticing a thing…

Go and read it all as they say.

Metrics are hard to come by in the war on terrorism. We can know the number of improvised explosive devices that go off in Iraq and the number of suicide bombers there, but we can only guess at whether these numbers represent the last throes of a terrorist movement or its continuing growth. We can count the number of days the Iraqi parliament has moved the deadline for drafting a constitution–seven, as this is written–but cannot be sure what the effect of a finally drafted constitution will be. We can note that some 220,000 Iraqis took part in deliberations over the constitution and that the Iraqi electricity supply now exceeds that of prewar levels.

But the most important changes occurring, not just in Iraq but across the Muslim world, are changes in people’s minds. These are harder, but not impossible, to measure. George W. Bush has proclaimed that we are working to build democracy in Iraq not just for Iraqis but in order to advance freedom and defeat fanatical Islamist terrorism around the world. Now comes the Pew Global Attitudes Project’s recent survey of opinion in six Muslim countries to tell us that progress is being made in achieving that goal. Minds are being changed and in the right direction.

Go read the numbers

The first is The Strange Metamorphosis of Senator Clinton.

“I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants.”

Who recently blurted that out?

Pat Buchanan? Congressman Tom Tancredo? Nope, it was Hillary Clinton.

Which Democratic senator has expressed little public remorse in voting for 23 counts to authorize war against Iraq, and has scoffed, “Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade”?

Yep, Clinton again.

And who frowned on frequent abortion, hoping that it “does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances”?

Need I even answer that?

We all know that the New York senator is moving ever rightward, but why so brazenly and all of a sudden?

The depressing answer is clear for any Northern liberal who wishes to be president: No Democratic presidential candidate has been elected without a Southern accent in the half-century since 1960. If the country in the last half-century has grown more conservative, the South is emblematic of that shift.

John F. Kennedy’s long-ago success was by a razor-thin margin. He pulled it off by emphasizing national defense, space exploration and tax cuts that apparently created the necessary patina of conservatism that Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton later found naturally in their drawly good-old-boy personas.

In contrast, given the defeats of Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, it seems that liberals from above the Mason-Dixon line have little chance anymore of winning sufficient red states to capture the Electoral College. A sort-of-Southern-sounding Al Gore came close and won the popular vote in 2000.

Many on the left, however, feel that the medicine of moving the party to the center is worse than the disease of remaining irrelevant. That said, triangulation for a chameleon Sen. Clinton relies on an emotional base that will still cry Hillary, right or wrong.

Like her husband, Hillary Clinton generates just that diehard loyalty. Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform bill for which George W. Bush would have been demonized. Without a cry from Barbara Boxer or Al Franken, he pre-empted and bombed in the Balkans despite neither U.N. approval nor a vote of the U.S. Senate.

And another is actually a review of “The Myth of Islamic Tolerance” on Hanson’s site by Bruce Thornton. Read it all here.

One of the greatest impediments in our war against jihadist terrorism is the misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies about Islam entertained by many of our public intellectuals. Examples are easy to find; here’s one from the otherwise intelligent Gregg Easterbrook, Atlantic Monthly contributor and senior editor at The New Republic, from his recent book The Progress Paradox: “Most Muslims are good-hearted, peace-loving people, just as are most Christians and Jews. A small minority of Muslims are vicious fanatics. But then the Christian ethos has spawned its share of hideous killers, among them the terrorist Timothy McVeigh, and this tells us nothing about the typical Christian.” The obviously false analogy in the last sentence — McVeigh didn’t kill with the sanction of Christian theology or belief, which has no doctrine remotely close to jihad, and millions of Christians didn’t dance in the streets after the bombing in Oklahoma City — could stand as a textbook example of this logical fallacy.

Such ignorance — on display everywhere in the media, especially among those eager to rationalize away the Islamic roots of the latest terrorist murder — makes a book like The Myth of Islamic Tolerance particularly important. Robert Spencer, in earlier books like Islam Unveiled, Onward Muslim Soldiers, and the recent The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, as well as on his invaluable website Jihad Watch (jihadwatch.org), has already done yeoman’s work in documenting Islam’s fundamental intolerance, martial aggressiveness, and sanctioning of violence against non-Muslim infidels. The 58 essays in the current book attack root and branch the widespread Orwellian myth, recently given cinematic sanction in Kingdom of Heaven, that Islamic societies have been historically more tolerant and friendly to minorities than has been Western culture.

via: LGF

MANILA (Reuters) - Two bombs exploded in the southern Philippine port city of Zamboanga on Wednesday, wounding 26 people, in attacks which security forces blamed on Muslim militants.

The first bomb, which exploded in a parked jeep, damaged shops and wounded 14 people. The second, in a room of a nearby hotel, wounded 12.

“These explosions appear to be terror attacks,” military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Buenaventura Pascual said, adding that a third bomb was found in the area but did not explode.

“These could be the handiwork of the Jemaah Islamiah or Abu Sayyaf because of our intense manhunt in Maguindanao,” he said, referring to a central province of Mindanao island where the militants are believed to be hiding.

Full story here.

Here we are again, talking about wonderful Government UNIONS, once more.

When will we as a body politic ever LEARN? Geez. I mean, we make some progress, things seem to get moving in a positive direction, and then something like this smacks us square in the face.

In a nutshell, San Francisco Public School “Service Workers” (janitors, cafeteria workers and the like) are threatening to hold the School District hostage, going on strike for more pay even as the start of the school year approaches. San Francisco Teachers are threatening to join the strike, delaying the start of school for tens of thousands of San Francisco schoolchildren.

Now, in order to pay for these raises for the janitors and cafeteria workers, the San Francisco School Board is seriously considering raiding a special fund, approved by voters, which gave $13 million to the schools for things like sports, arts college and career counselling and other “enrichment activites” for kids.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the SFUSD fire any and all “service workers” who walk out. Period. Immediately hire replacements for all staff thus terminated.

Remember, it’s “all about the children.”

The public watchdog group SFSOS has it right:

School support staff threaten strike; teachers may join in

If you suffer through as many School Board meetings as we do, you’ll often hear politicos drone on about their pet project and claim that it’s good for the children, and, after all, “It’s all about the children.” Sometimes, like today, it’s becomes crystal clear who’s looking out for the children, and who’s looking out for the adults.

As the handful of families who remain in San Francisco are just weeks from the start of school, the teachers union is threatening to join SEIU’s service workers in a strike that would shut down K-12 education for 58,000 public school children. Threatening our children’s education unless we get pay raises. Who’s for the children here?

Despite the well-known financial struggles the School District has been enduring — the layoffs, the program cuts, the school closures — SEIU Local 790, which represents school support staff such as custodians and cafeteria workers, is demanding more money. Should they strike (they’ll vote on that in early September), the teachers themselves are likely to join. This might be the first strike ever sponsored by the Marin County Realtors Association.

To further undermine the confidence in our schools, and for that matter our confidence in our government as a whole, there is talk that a $13 million advance the City has provided the School District could go to pay for these raises. That $13 million is Prop H money. Remember Prop H? The crux of Prop H money — what voters endorsed — was funding for school enrichment programs. One-third was to go to sports, arts and libraries. One-third was to go to preschool and related programs. The final one-third was to be allocated to “…gifted and talented programs, magnet programs, literacy programs, dual-language immersion programs, special education, employee compensation, career and college centers at high schools, teacher mentoring or master teacher programs, or other instructional purposes.”

Now, while that tiny little reference to “employee compensation” among all those important programs certainly allows the Prop. H money to be used to pay salaries, absolutely everyone who supported Prop. H (like SOS and so many of our members) knew that all of the Prop. H money was supposed to be for more programs. The whole point was that taxpayers wanted the School District to have additional enrichment programs for the children, not additional enrichment for the adults already in the same programs. Voters weren’t asked to increase funding for the status quo. They passed Prop H to get more, not to get more of the same.

And, in an interesting contrast (that we’re so used to seeing), Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Board of Ed President Eric Mar vary greatly on their respective approach to the strike. Ackerman is the negotiating diplomat: “If there is any way I can support [Local 790's] issues without putting the district in any kind of fiscal jeopardy, I will do that,” the Examiner quoted her as saying. Mar, on the other hand — the president who should be leading a balanced dialogue toward a fiscally responsible end, is instead flying the extremist solidarity flag and sending out emails rallying protesters to mobilize on behalf of Local 790. Gee, is that “All About the Children” or “All About Mar’s 2008 District 1 Supervisor Campaign”? We think Richmond District parents will remember that Mar’s slogan as Board President has been “It’s all about my endorsements.”

Police and firefighters are prohibited by law from striking due to the threat to life that such a strike would cause. Teachers striking ought to take a close second on such a severity scale. But since it is not illegal, public outrage is all that protects us from such an irresponsible and damaging action. Your outrage should be doubled since the teacher’s union isn’t even involved in the financial negotiations. They’re threatening to strike just because it’s called for under their “you scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours” union boss solidarity pact.”

Please write a letter to the Board of Education, urging them to denounce the potential strike by the SEIU Local 790 and by the teachers’ union

Some call it racial profiling. To me it is simply more efficient screening in the War on Terror. And as Charles Krauthammer says, we do not need to pat down elderly women from Poughkeepsie. And I’ll be damned if I want to see my liberty slip away to make one sector of our population more comfortable with a PC approach. We know who the enemy is:

–

The American response to tightening up after London has been reflexive and idiotic: random bag checks in the New York subways. Random meaning that the people stopped are to be chosen numerically. One in every 5 or 10 or 20.

This is an obvious absurdity and everyone knows it. It recapitulates the appalling waste of effort and resources we see at airports every day when, for reasons of political correctness, 83-year-old grandmothers from Poughkeepsie are required to remove their shoes in the search for jihadists hungering for paradise.

The only good thing to be said for this ridiculous policy is that it testifies to the tolerance and good will of Americans, so intent on assuaging the feelings of minority fellow citizens that they are willing to undergo useless indignities and tolerate massive public waste.

Assuaging feelings is a good thing, but hunting for terrorists in this way is simply nuts. The fact is that jihadist terrorism has been carried out from Bali to Casablanca to Madrid to London to New York City to Washington by young Islamic men of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian origin.

This is not a stereotype. It is a simple statistical fact. Yes, you have your shoe-bomber, a mixed-race Muslim convert, who would not fit the profile. But the overwhelming odds are that the guy bent on blowing up your train traces his origins to the Islamic belt stretching from Mauritania to Indonesia.

Read the whole thing.

Once in a while I run across a quote by someone I am familiar with while doing a seemingly unrelated Google search. This one is from a professor who was interpreting Dr Thomas Sowell– a man whose work I greatly respect, but whose tone I cringe at. Anyway, in the current “judicial activism” conversation, I find this illuminating:

Justice means adherence to agreed upon rules the violation of which deranges the expectations of others and adversely changes their future conduct as they lose confidence in the general reliability of existing and future rules and agreements. Justice derives its importance from the need to preserve society through the provision of general principles. Sowell explains that men will suffer more by a breakdown of order than by some injustices. What is involved is a trade-off between individual justice and the social benefits of certainty. Judicial activism would derange the whole process. A better verdict may be reached in a specific case but at the cost of damaging the consistency and predictability of the law. There cannot be a law-abiding society if no one knows in advance what laws they are to obey but must wait for judges to create ex post facto legal rulings based on evolving standards rather than known rules. The losses of poorer judicial decisions are offset against the prospective guidance of known rules leading to fewer criminal law violations or needs for civil litigation. General stability of expectations and standards are more important than the particular benefits of wisdom and virtue. A judge should therefore apply the rules even if in the specific instance the known consequences will appear to be undesirable. 
  
Law exists to preserve society. It follows that criminal justice is concerning with deterring crime, not with finely adjusting punishments to the individual. Sowell explains that law represents the evolved and codified experience of all men who have ever lived – it is the experience of the many, rather than the wisdom of the few. 

While it is a sprawling analysis of Sowell, you can read it all here if that sort of thing interests you.

…are a fundamental human right. So says Walter Williams. I am inclined to agree.

I had 2 [yes t-w-o] g4 PowerBooks go down in the same week. I will be blogging again Monday. May you never experience this. AND may the sands of the Gobi forever blow at your back.

Eric Christen, executive director of the statewide Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, wonderful piece in the Sunday _Chronicle_ on the big walkout from the AFL-CIO, that’s now gotten even bigger, with more and more Unions choosing to split from the big national labor federation

As I’ve said before, let’s hope it spells the end of destructive “Unionism” as we’ve known it:

With the collapse of socialism and the rise of the information-and- technology age, along with the dynamic, interconnected world economy it represents, leftists like Sweeney (a card-carrying member of the American Socialist Party) have determined that the only way for unionism to survive at all is for two things to occur: force non-union workers to join unions, while making them pay for the pleasure; and encourage huge government growth, thereby creating more union jobs. To accomplish this, Sweeney has hitched his horse to the Democrat Party in no uncertain terms.

Sadly, this trend has come at the expense of the very workers the union claims to represent. For instance, despite the fact that the unions give so heavily to the Democrat Party, 43 percent of union workers themselves voted for President Bush in 2004, according to exit poll data. Though the National Labor Relations Act empowers unions to provide on-the-job representation for workers in terms of wages, benefits and working conditions, the union bosses of today prefer instead to serve as mouthpieces for an activist, radical political agenda.

It’s not a long piece, but it makes some other excellent points, so be sure to check out the whole thing.

We’ve made the point around here before — there’s nothing inherently wrong (and in fact there is quite a bit right, in principle) with workers organizing into Unions. But such organizations — like all organizations — can become corrupt and self-serving and coercive and anti-democratic and basically counterproductive. And it seems fairly clear that there is a lot wrong with the way Unions currently work in our political and economic system today.

Perhaps with the breakup of the AFL-CIO and (hopefully) the passage later this year of California’s “Paycheck Protection” Union reform measure, organized labor is (slowly, contentiously) turning a corner and evolving into a more positive, moderate force.

If organized labor doesn’t evolve, Christen says, it may not survive, “and rightly so.”

Amen.