Assessment of Danger?

We don’t need no stinkin’ assessment of danger!

“I looked at your report. All I found was anecdotal evidence. I think if I would have done my dissertation or my report, I would have got an F. Don’t you think anybody that would render this as a Ph.D. would have gotten an F in the report?”

Wow, such a low view of generals who led the United States Army.  You’d almost think Mr. Cuellar dislikes the military.

Bet those generals don’t like him, either.  I can’t say for sure, seein’ as they keep their emotions in check.  Funny how, once a guy’s been shot at a few times, insult-slinging doesn’t cause much sweat. 

All this over an assessment of our border with Mexico.  Hmpf.  Just ask the people who live there.

I can’t seem to embed the video.  Do click over to Breitbart or Fox for the generals’ responses.

Using The Right Words Will Change Reality . . . Right?

Isn’t that what Newspeak is all about?

Here’s a big example:  the President’s words in Cairo were supposed to herald a new era for relations between the United States and Islamic people worldwide. 

Joe Scarborough thinks the Egyptian revolt may be proof that the President’s speech worked, as hoped, thusly changing reality for the better in Egypt.  Hmm.  Seems a bit tenuous.  I’m wondering if people being, you know, sick of an oppressive regime that tortures opponents, had more to do with it . . . .

Now, on to the miniscule example.  The following video illustrates just how committed the left is to the concept of newspeak.  Right down to some stupid paper-and-plywood sign in the middle of nowhere.

So.  Is that Arizona rabble rouser, Governor Brewer, using your own federal sign against you?

Change the sign!  See?  No more border trouble here!

I can’t help but wonder how the sign actually got changed.  At what level in the bureaucracy did it get noticed?  How many memos, emails, and discussions resulted?  Did these folks believe this change was substantively necessary?  Or did they realize it’s just a political ploy?

I drive myself crazy with questions like this.

When Topics Collide

When topics collide in an unexpected manner, then it feels postworthy.

Of course, a lot of blog brethren wrote about the horrow show that was Dr. Gosnell’s Murder Mill. 

But I didn’t realize that the woman he killed was a recently arrived refugee.  Ms. Corcoran over at Refugee Resettlement Watch points this fact out.  (If you don’t read her stuff regularly, you should.)  Karnamaya Monger had been in the United States only four months.  The bitter irony of it:

“She was born in Bhutan and then survived nearly two decades in refugee camps. She had finally immigrated to Woodbridge, Virginia, only to die in a squalid, Pennsylvania abortion clinic, filled with bags of aborted fetuses.”

Corcoran asks the question, who resettled this woman?  The question is a good one, because these resettlement agencies are 1) usually church-affiliated, and 2) remain involved in the refugee’s new life for months, in order to help her settle into the new culture.

So, was a Catholic or Lutheran agency involved in getting this Virginia-settled refugee up to Dr. Gosnell’s abortion clinic in Pennsylvania?

Aren’t Catholics and Lutherans supposed to be pro-life?

Just a question.

But, I Thought The Left Cares More!

The statists and collectivists have always taken the High Road of Caring More Than You and Me.  It is key to the left’s appeal, in fact.  How else can all the spending, all the programs, and all the debt be justified, if it is not to help the poor?  The children?   The uneducated?  The old?  The unemployed?  The small businessman?  The undocumented?  Ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Maybe not so much.  Maybe the agenda is actually more important, after all.  

The blogger at Refugee Resettlement Watch provides the link to an interesting article indeed.  It is about the heartrending story of Cambodian refugee Mout Iv.  He was to be deported after finishing his jail time (assault), but he has been on “supervised release” since 1998.  He owns a barbershop.  He is a family man.  Now that he is a productive, fully rooted member of our society, ICE is finally getting around to deporting him.

Why?

“Behind the rash of detentions and expulsions is the Obama administration, which is attempting to win public and congressional support for immigration reform.”

So the current administration is all about the illegal immigrants who are just trying to better their lives . . . except for in poor Iv’s case, because screwing him may advance the agenda.  After all, the end justifies the means.

Funny, I just read something about that phrase:  “the end justifies the means:”

“The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualistic ethics regarded as the denial of all morals.  In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves ‘the good of the whole,’ because the ‘good of the whole’ is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done.”

The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek, p. 166 (2007 ed. Univ. of Chicago Press) (emphasis mine).

For those unfamiliar, this book was originally published in 1944.

It’s 2010 now, and the sheep’s clothing is gettin’ kinda tattered.

Refugee Resettlement Watch has good stuff regularly, by the way.  I recommend subscribing.