101st Fighting Keyboardists

I have decided to join the 101st Fighting Keyboardists, if they'll have me...
Their motto is: We eat chickens for lunch.
Their mascot is the chickenhawk.
Their FAQ is here.

Article in the WaPo on depopulation

There's an article in the Washington Post by Robert Samuelson on the coming massive drop in population.

Relevant quotes (my emphasis in bold):

One way or another, the side effects will be massive for economics, politics and people's well-being. Indeed, they may already have started. Is it a coincidence that Germany and Italy, two countries on the edge of population decline, are so troubled?

...

Up to a point, we understand plunging fertility rates. Wattenberg reviews the usual suspects: improved incomes; health and life expectancies (as more children survive, parents have fewer babies); growing urbanization (families need fewer children to work the fields); women's access to education and jobs; contraception; later and fewer marriages; more divorces. But our understanding is only partial, because there's one big exception to low fertility rates: the United States.

American fertility is roughly at the replacement rate, 2.1 children per woman. Nor does the U.S. rate merely reflect, as some think, a higher rate among Hispanic Americans. The fertility rate is 1.9 for non-Hispanic whites and about 2 for African-Americans, reports demographer Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute. What explains the American exception? Eberstadt cites three differences with Europe and most other advanced countries: greater optimism, greater patriotism and stronger religious values. There's some supporting evidence. A survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago asked respondents in 33 countries to react to this statement: ``I would rather be a citizen of (my country) than of any other.'' Among Americans, 75 percent ``strongly'' agreed; among Germans, the French and Spanish, comparable responses were 21 percent, 34 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

...

By not having children, people are voting against the future -- their countries' and, perhaps, their own. It is easy to imagine the sacrifices and disappointments of raising children. It is hard, try as people might, to imagine the intense joys and selfish pleasures. People ignore Adam Smith's keen insight: ``The chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved.''

This is something I've always wondered about - Why do leftist intellectuals love tyrants?

I need to write an article or the like on this:
Thank you, my foolish friends in the West

Criticism of American policies and economic practices are necessary and often just, but why do leftists continue to discredit their critical stance by applauding strongmen who oppress and murder their own critics? Is it simply a reverse application of that famous American cold war dictum: “He may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard”? Or is it the fatal attraction to power often felt by writers and artists who feel marginal and impotent in capitalist democracies? ...

The left has a proud tradition of defending political freedoms, at home and abroad. But this tradition is in danger of being lost when western intellectuals indulge in power worship. Applause for autocrats undermines the morale of people who insist on fighting for their freedoms Leftists were largely sympathetic, and rightly so, to critics of Berlusconi and Thaksin, even though neither was a dictator. Both did, of course, support American foreign policy. But when democracy is endangered, the left should be equally hard on rulers who oppose the US. Failure to do so encourages authoritarianism everywhere, including in the West itself, where the frivolous behaviour of a dogmatic left has already allowed neoconservatives to steal all the best lines.

Here we go again!

Iran eyes badges for Jews

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

John McCain lost my vote

I used to be a fan of John McCain, but he just lost any chance of receiving my vote if he were to run for President in 2008.

Why? Because of his statement, "I know that money corrupts … I would rather have a clean government than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government."

In other words, according to McCain, the U.S. government may:
- establish an official religion,
- prohibit the free exercise of a religion,
- limit the freedom of speech,
- limit the freedom of the press,
- ban demonstrations and other peaceful assemblies of Americans,
- ban petitioning the government for "a redress of grievances"

as long as John McCain considers the government 'clean'.

That's not a trade I'm willing to make.
C