Sunday, July 29, 2007

Guantanamo Releases Terrorists - Left Smiling

It appears that quite a few of those released from Guantanamo have gone on to rejoin their terrorist colleagues in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Left should be proud.

Moore's Fantasy "Sicko" Will Cost Lives

Via the Copious Dissent blog, here's a short piece on the Canadian healthcare system. A quote from the post:

If you want to find the real story of Canada’s failed Universal Healthcare system, look no further than America’s boarder cities. The Buffalo News just reported a story about, Lindsay McCreith, a 66 year-old Canadian retired auto body shop owner. This story, accurately reported by Henry L. Davis, demonstrates why Michael Moore’s new propaganda film, “Sicko” is patently misleading.

McCreith experienced seizures on Jan. 2, 2006, and was diagnosed with a benign tumor based on a CT scan. A physician at a Canadian hospital declined to order an MRI to rule out a malignancy. McCreith’s family doctor agreed to request the more-definitive scan, but McCreith was told he would have to wait over four months for the appointment.According to McCreith, had he been patient and followed the Canadian system, he would have died.

Instead, McCreith went to Buffalo to receive treatment the very next day. In Buffalo, he was told he had a malignant tumor, which required a biopsy. After trying the Canadian system again, he was told they would not allow the biopsy for another three months. McCreith, having a good friend die waiting for heart surgery, decided to see if the American private system could save his life. It did just that.

Moore has has created another fantasy. The only thing is, this time it's literally about life and death.

The Objective Standard on Socialistic Healthcare

As usual, great stuff from The Objective Standard, this time on healthcare. I hesitate to comment much, because they say things so well already.

Take some time to read this if you want a different perspective on "universal healthcare."

Boing Boing: Unsubstantiated Claim That State Department Covering Up Use of Slave Labor

I hope this story on Boing Boing about allegations that slave labor was used to build the American Embassy in Baghdad (by a Kuwaiti firm) is untrue.

I also wish that Boing Boing wouldn't turn a simple US State Department statement that the allegations are untrue into a coverup. After all, to state the obvious, it's possible that the allegations are untrue. Worse, there's nothing in Boing Boing's source for this post to support such an accusation, and I find it deplorable that they would manufacture one.

But of course the Left really needs no hard evidence to support accusations of American wrong-doing. To them, it's all simply self-evident.

YouTube Refuses to Watch Out for Violent Videos


First, I think it demonstrates both cultural decline and a negative aspect of technology that brutal fights between kids as young as 11 or so are available on YouTube. Note that I'm against government censorship, and so I'm not implying that government should be doing anything about this.

Second, this quote by YouTube brings up an ineresting and related point:

The site, which is owned by Google, claims pre-screening content is a form of censorship which is not the role of a private company.

That's a fascinating statement, because for one thing, it could be taken to imply that censorship is thus the role of some other, non-private entity (i.e., government). That's a loose interpretation, I admit, but it's there.

Second, it's not "censorship" when YouTube polices its content for any kind of material, be it obscenity, hate speech, copyrighted material, or kids committing crimes and brutally assaulting someone. It's YouTubes property that's being used to show these videos, and so YouTube has every right--and some might say, moral responsibility--to control what's being posted.

I mentioned earlier that government should do nothing to stop YouTube from posting anything but copyrighted materials (because that, in and of itself, is a crime and is not protected speech), and so I'm not condoning censorship. But anyone who finds this material, and others, offensive should engage in their own freedom of expression by refusing to use the site and even, if they wish, to organize boycotts against the site's advertisers.

I find Google more and more cavalier in what they find appropriate in how to conduct business. They're motto "Do No Evil" sounds more and more hollow every day.

Iranian Execution of Dissidents to Increase

Here's a little piece on how Iran continues to executive dissidents for the "security" of the nation. A quote:

In his Wednesday remarks, Ahmadinejad said, “The nature of the work is that the government is defending with all its power the security measures to protect people in particular when dealing with hooligans, they all should defend [these measures]...” By referring to youths who were executed in recent weeks he said, “Every single one of these [young people] is like a dangerous bug, therefore, they should either be corrected or put in jail otherwise should do what has been done.”

But, the Left would have us believe that Iran's an innocent victim of America's imperialistic ambitions and Bushitler's lust for for oil.

Digg Report

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at 3790 Diggs, is a link to a story about an employee who's suing her employer over a tricky contest that she won.

Deep stuff, Diggsters.

Ahmadinejad: Is it All Just a Political Power Play?

An interesting take from Strategy Page on Iranian President Imajihadi (or whatever his name is). Basically, the story says, Imajihadi is losing his grip on power in Iran over a number of idiotic statements and policy moves, and his only hope to regain power is to provoke the US into a war.

Such things have been done before. Unfortunately for him, a full-out war with the US wouldn't turn out so well, and his political future would be cut very short. The analysis does make some sense, but I think there are deeper, highly mystical, religious machinations at work.

In short, I don't think many of Imajihadi's actions are merely political maneuvering.

An Inside View at China

Here's an inside view of China and it's various methods of interacting with the outside world. It's personal opinion, of course, but it does tend to correlate with what's presented elsewhere.

A quote:

Having lived in China, watched China through my own media mesmerized eyes, and witnessed China’s government actions and reactions through Chinese business associates and friends, I have come to be distrustful of just about everything said and done by China’s government.

It is almost as if the Chinese government has been across the table from me for 30 years as we played poker. You get to know intuitively when the adversary is bluffing, lying, admitting, or avoiding.

Worth a quick read.

China Hearts Execution

More on China's love for the death penalty. If the Left wanted to really do something about government executions, they's start with China.

But, whatever. In this case, China's putting to death two gang leaders whose minions were tapping into an oil pipeline and stealing crude. Here in the ol' US, that would get someone a few years in jail. Of course, in an Islamic state, the punishment might be somewhere right in the middle, like the loss of one or both hands.

But, by multicultural standards, whatever works, right?

Russia Still Bent on Cotnrolling North Pole

Once Russia's planted its flag under the North Pole, what then? What does the West, specifically North America, do about it? Anything? Or is this simply another Putin stunt that we should simply ignore?

And, in general, Russia probably couldn't exploit the area anyways, and so it doesn't really matter.

Boing Boing: U.S. Military Shouldn't Recruit

Apparently, Boing Boing believes that U.S. Army recruiting efforts are "bad." To quote:

The US Army has developed a stand-up arcade version of its video-game "America's Army" and it will seed it in arcades around the country. This is straight out of a science fiction novel, but what would be even more skiffy is if they were to put these in arcades outside of the US. I'm surprised they're charging to play these games -- the natural thing would be to make these the only free games in the arcade, so the poorest and most desperate kids would dominate them, absorbing messages about signing up for Der Surge.

And of course, there's the obligatory German to bring a Nazi feel to the piece ("Der Surge"?).

The Left honestly does believe, I think, that the only threat in the world is the US government, and if only they had their way, there wouldn't even be a need for military recruiting. It's a bit nauseating, honestly.