Thursday 16 March 2006

Six Reasons to Kill Farm Subsidies & Trade Barriers [wake up, traitors]

Reason: Six Reasons to Kill Farm Subsidies and Trade Barriers: A no-nonsense reform strategy: "America’s agricultural policies have remained fundamentally unchanged for nearly three-quarters of a century. The U.S. government continues to subsidize the production of rice, milk, sugar, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, and other commodities, while restricting imports to maintain artificially high domestic prices. The competition and innovation that have changed the face of the planet have been effectively locked out of America’s farm economy by politicians who fear farm voters [agrarian myth, ass-licker, the 'farm vote' is a few dirt-poor folks plus megadeath global corp$, which DO quake the boots of crooked congress] more than the dispersed consumers who subsidize them."

.../... [vomit-logic time: ] In the last two decades, the number of sugar refineries in the U.S. has dwindled from 23 to eight, largely because of the [criminal and RICO tactics of falsely ] doubled price of domestic raw sugar. During the last decade thousands of jobs have been lost in the confectionary industry, with losses especially heavy in the Chicago area. Expensive food also hurts restaurants. [no brain here: the markup would not shift versus grocery-store/ at-home-cost]

[I am too sickened to continue, this would be WEAK for an typical A+ high school student, what a disgrace, "grass-would-be-greener"
mentality with head firmly in uranus. trio of twits put names to this? ]
Daniel Griswold is director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies. Stephen Slivinski is Cato’s director of budget studies. Christopher Preble is Cato’s director of foreign policy studies.

Bin Laden: Islamist or Patsy Poll-Tweaker?

Reason: Blogger, Bush-Basher, Bin Laden: Why does an Islamist warrior sound suspiciously like Michael Moore?: [why do you concieve that you can think in two dimensions? ]

Then it struck me: Bin Laden is a blogger. Not literally, of course, but he certainly speaks in the [bon mots] language of the blogosphere. He references Robert Fisk and Michael Moore, those darlings of the anti-war Web. In his latest statement, he recommends that people [is that merkins? or chinese?] read Rogue State by leftist author William Blum, another favorite of the leftwing blogosphere whose email newsletter, "Anti-Empire Report," is frequently republished and discussed. [ forgot your coffee today? this is verbose rubbish] Bin Laden also repeats conspiracy theories about 9/11 and lines of attack against Bush that I have read a thousand times on a thousand blogs [you, buffoon, write like a tritely turdalist].

.../... [sounds JUST like a PHONY CIA plant to ]
His justifications for 9/11 also changed in tune with Western theories. At first, in September 2001, he disavowed responsibility for 9/11, instead pinning the blame on some dastardly conspiracy within America itself. He talked about "a government within the government in the United States" which may have facilitated the attacks because "there are intelligence agencies in the US which require billions of dollars of funds from the Congress and the government every year." Such theories will sound familiar to anyone who happened upon conspiracy-theory websites or some of the wackier blogs in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. By October, bin Laden was celebrating 9/11's impact on America's economy and sense of resolve, talking about "the psychological shock of the attack," .../...

Bin Laden's parasitical relationship with Western debate really came into its own from 2004 onwards. During this period he has sounded almost indistinguishable from various Bush-bashing blogs. In April 2004 he ranted about "big media," describing them as "agents of deception and exploitation." He said the war in Iraq "is making billions of dollars for the big corporations, whether it be those who manufacture weapons or reconstruction firms like Halliburton and its offshoot sister companies." Halliburton has, of course, become the bête noir of anti-war bloggers. Bin Laden also said, "It is all too clear, then, who benefits most from stirring up this war and bloodshed: the merchants of war who direct world policy from behind the scenes." This is also a popular idea in the blogosphere: that a wicked cabal led by Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney (both of whom have HUGE big business links) is leading America to war. Indeed, in his latest statement bin Laden spells out who these "merchants of war" are, describing Iraq as "the ill-omened plan of the four—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz." He has also adopted the "war for oil" argument of various anti-war bloggers, arguing that the "black gold blinded [Bush]."

Bin Laden frequently namedrops the anti-war blogosphere's favorite authors and activists. In October 2004 he advised the White House to read "Robert Fisk, who is a fellow [Westerner] and a co-religionist of yours, but one whom I consider unbiased." [OBL sounds as powerless and un-indoctrinated as I am, what a HOAX; QED /jks] In the same statement bin Laden chastised Bush for leaving "50,000 of his citizens in the two towers" because he considered "a little girl's story about a goat and its butting [to be] more important than dealing with airplanes and their butting into skyscrapers."—a clear reference to Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, which opens with footage of Bush reading My Pet Goat to a classroom of children on the morning of 9/11. Did bin Laden watch a pirate [why could he not buy one , damn twit; 'piracy' is for mongrels without money] DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11, or did he read about it on the Web? And now he has recommended that Bush and Co. read Blum's Rogue State. Funny [no it is apish, like how all boosh's accusations agains Saddam prior to hoaxed invadion were the precise thruth about his own 'bad theater play'] how this Islamist warrior never recommends that we read the Koran. [QED, he is a bad fake made by incompetents seeking a patsy for their Able-Danger -assisted- "attack" on the WTC. Gee, that computes better than 'your' tripe, yes? /jks]

Who knows whether bin Laden has access to the Web? Who knows whether he reads blogs, or [has constipation or polyps? ] or rather hears such arguments from supportive visitors from Pakistan or Afghanistan or [stan-istan , moron] Wherever-istan. But one thing is clear: His arguments sound remarkably familiar. Like bloggers he seems obsessed by media coverage of the Iraq war (and of himself) rather than by the substance of the war itself; and he certainly speaks in the shrill tones of some of the crankier left-wing bloggers. Bin Laden, it seems to me, is regurgitating the arguments of Western commentators and using them to justify his crimes [they do not need justifying, nor will the next two centuries of their retaliation]. He is less the armed wing of a clear or coherent Islamist-imperialism or Islamo-fascism than he is the armed [what evidence of arms or means or even 'cells' ? sheet-head? ] wing of the blogosphere, of the West's own fearful and tortured debates about war and terrorism today.


Brendan O'Neill is deputy editor of spiked in London. His [emesis?] journalism is archived [at noplace but his own fathead shrine] http://www.brendanoneill.net/.

Enough Patriotism, Already: Kwame Appiah's refreshing call to cosmopolitanism

Reason: Enough Patriotism, Already: Kwame Appiah's refreshing call to cosmopolitanism: "According to one popular narrative, the 9/11 attacks inaugurated a new era of global conflict between two groups (perhaps even Civilizations) with radically opposed worldviews: one thoroughly globalized, envisioning a world community cooperating according to universal principles; the other narrowly tribalist, animated by a prerational affection for the local and parochial, committed to the superiority of its own group mores.

It has not, alas, always been clear which group is which."

.../...

As important, Appiah pegs the radical Islamists who stand as the most obvious threat to that liberal cosmopolitan vision not as evidence of an anti-modern tribalist backlash—a view made popular by works such as Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld—but as "counter-cosmopolitans," not the leaders of a reaction against globalization and modernity, but offspring of those forces.

It has been observed that terrorists are often drawn from the most affluent, modern, and westernized classes of their societies. Appiah draws on the work of French sociologist Olivier Roy, whose insight-rich Globalized Islam explains that this is no coincidence, that Salafist doctrines, despite their veneration of the "pious ancestors" for which they're named, bear at their core the imprimatur of both modernity and globalization.

.../... [odd, but for later examination/jmj ==> ]

The late philosopher Robert Nozick once quipped that there was something faintly paradoxical about Timothy Leary's professed desire to be the "holiest" man alive. A genuine American patriotism is a similar sort of hot ice. Not, of course, because Americans can't indulge in familiar affection for place, history, and song, but because the content of those symbols points so resolutely away from the local and parochial. What we share as Americans, as opposed to as Manhattanites or Angelenos or Witchitans, are principles that trumpet our community with the rest of humanity.

.../...

In short, we needlessly encumber values whose very virtue is their "thinness": The strength of liberal values such as freedom of speech or religious toleration is that they gain support from so many (often contradictory) sources. I may value free speech out of regard for the dignity of an unfettered human mind; or because of a Millian faith in the power of unrestricted discourse to seek truth; or simply as a modus vivendi, because I lack confidence that I'll get to decide who's censored in a pluralist society. To bind those values too closely to any one people, or even to "the West," is to shrink and atrophy them.


Julian Sanchez is an assistant editor of Reason. He lives in Washington, D.C.


VaporWare Awards: M$ & Google

Digital Inspiration: Software Reviews, Technology News, Downloads, Productivity Tips: "Here are some of the most interesting recipients of the Wired.com Vaporware Awards 2005.

* Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs
* - Other than a constant stream of hyped press releases from Sony, there has been little indication of any progress.Microsoft Vista and Internet Explorer 7
* - The ever-delayed debut of Microsoft's next version of Windows, Vista, is a long-running vaporware joke. It's been put off so many times, it's been called 'Hasta la Vista.'Google - betas galore
- Google never seems to release a final version of anything. Google Gmail, Groups, Froogle, Alerts, Blog Search, Book Search and Scholar are all in beta."

Other reader nominess for Vaporware Awards include Microsoft XBOX 360 and Apple PowerBook G5. Read complete list - Vaporware: Better Late Than Never