The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.
CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."
Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group ! singing, "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.
Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer! The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.
Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2008.
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. The ant is warm and well fed but eventually dies of a heart attack caused by obesity.
MORALITY: "Yi munch, yi don't munch yi croak the same".
#3
oh when will euro trash revert to their inner selfs and go mongrol on these fascists bastards...those two on top of the police car should be shot...could you imagine this happening in the US -- heads would roll and i would be cheering --->
Posted by: dan ||
11/30/2007 18:01 Comments ||
Top||
Shortly before he died in January 2003, aged a ripe 82, Roy Jenkins, Labour Home Secretary in the Wilson Government of the 1960s and reputedly the most liberal and compassionate holder of that office in the entire century, confessed to a reporter that if he had known then what he knew now, he would never have permitted the same scale of Muslim immigration into the United Kingdom.
Born into a Welsh coal mining family, Jenkins won a scholarship to that most quintessential of Oxford colleges, Balliol, no less, where Jowett and Lindsay had once held sway as legendary Masters. Jenkins, with his clipped accent and love of claret, never allowed his humble origins to hobble him intellectually or cramp his style. He was an accomplished biographer, with eminently readable works on Asquith, Churchill and Roosevelt to his credit. In the Left's lean years, when Thatcherism's shrill tones and incessant clamour had drowned the liberal voice, with Old Labour too restrictively militant for his taste and New Labour yet to be born, Jenkins transferred his allegiance to a new dispensation, becoming one of the founders of the Liberal Democratic Party.
A lover of the arts, at home in the republic of letters (he ended his days as Chancellor of Oxford University), Jenkins enjoyed good conversation which, as Johnson remarked some two centuries and more earlier, was the hallmark of the clubable gentleman. Jenkins had detected the first signs of disturbance in the sylvan setting, the mounting challenge to the values of the Enlightenment that had shaped modern Western civilisation which, through all manner of cultural contact, had done much to shape many an alien shore.
The renaissance in 19th century Bengal, with its galaxy of great figures, comes readily to mind. The radiance that spread to most corners of India became a period of seed-time and remedy, a time to sow and a time to reap as the new body politic took shape. So began all that has been fruitful in the Indo-Western dialogue.
Respect for diversity, the importance of doubt and the search for knowledge became the benchmarks of this civilisational encounter. Out of this surely has grown the common attachment to democracy and the rule of law. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's memorable Four Freedoms, enunciated during the darkest days of World War II, when Nazi barbarism seemed unstoppable, was the inspirational force behind the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The recent mob violence that has so disfigured Kolkata and Paris tells of the demons and simulacra of this earth who seek to demolish enlightened order with its creative space, and replace it with mephitic substitutes. When Mrs Margaret Thatcher, as British Prime Minister, offered the Anglo-Pakistani novelist, Salman Rushdie, the full protection of the British state against his would-be Muslim assassins on the strength of his British citizenship, she assumed for me a near heroic dimension I never thought it was within me to give.
Rushdie had been exhibiting his skills as a Muslim trapeze artiste, entertaining the faithful with gyrations against Britain - likened insultingly to apartheid South Africa - and 'Hindu' India and its supposed oppression of its Muslim and Sikh minorities. He went a step too far with The Satanic Verses and glimpsed, however briefly, the purgatory from which he had mercifully escaped when he shook off the barren dust of Pakistan for the hospitable dust of Britain.
Taslima Nasreen fled the hell of Bangladesh for friendlier climes. Her wanderings brought her to Kolkata, where she felt at home and from where she has been expelled by the Marxist regime in thrall to Islamist fanatics whose relationship to India is best compared to that of a death-watch beetle to a tree. In this particular instance, religion far from being the opium of the masses is their nectar.
The rioting mobs seen in Paris this past week are of north African descent. They march to the Bastille, not with Rousseau and Voltaire on their lips but calls to establish the divine right of kings through a divinely created global caliphate. The struggle against the new barbarism and its tyranny is indivisible. Those who seek solace from politically correct drones and incantations will soon have nowhere to go. The specious cry of peace in our time was followed by the most terrible of world conflicts.
The rioting mobs seen in Paris this past week are of north African descent. They march to the Bastille, not with Rousseau and Voltaire on their lips but calls to establish the divine right of kings through a divinely created global caliphate. The struggle against the new barbarism and its tyranny is indivisible. Those who seek solace from politically correct drones and incantations will soon have nowhere to go. The specious cry of peace in our time was followed by the most terrible of world conflicts.
Viewing the spectacle of Nasreen's present travails and the contortions of India's myriad parties, one is reminded of an engagement between horse traders, horse thieves and cattle rustlers. India must reclaim its lost honour.
As for the Roy Jenkins opening reflection on Muslim immigration, one must wonder whether something similar couldn't be said of the dilemma that faced India's liberal leaders at the time of their country's partition. If they knew then what we know now, they might have persuaded greater numbers of India's Muslim community to depart for Pakistan, which so many of them did so much to create.
Historical threads link London and much of Britain to the sub-continent. Brick Lane in London's East End could well be in Sylhet, such are its sights, sounds and smells. An eponymous novel by Monica Ali received critical acclaim from reviewers and has recently been released as a film.
Local Sylheti leaders organised a protest against the book on the ground that it maligned Sylhetis and Sylhet. Curiously, few of them read English, but the movement gathered momentum and a visiting film crew who desired nothing more than a few shots of ordinary street scenes were advised by the Brick Lane police station to leave for fear of provoking public disorder. The film's gala opening was to have had a royal presence in Prince Charles. His visit was called off out of fear of a hostile demonstration.
Meanwhile, Mr Delwar Hussain Sayeedi, a Bangladeshi MP at the time, on a speaking tour of London with the approval of the British Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, compared his country's Hindus to excrement (report by Richard Ford, Nicola Woodcock and Sean O'Neill in The Times, July 14, 2006).
Now, a year-and-a-half later, Ms Gillian Gibbons, a British primary school teacher on assignment to Sudan, has been jailed for blaspheming Islam. Her class of Sudanese seven-year-olds in Khartoum had named a teddy Mohammed, for which crime their teacher has been sentenced to 15 days in jail.
Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Posted by: john frum ||
11/30/2007 15:55 ||
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#1
OOOOOOO, "mephitic". * "Compared his country's Hindus to excrement" - YOU JUST KNOW THATS A TASERIN'!
By Bill Roggio
More than a month after the Taliban took over the settled district of Swat, once the most visited tourist spot in Pakistan, the Pakistani Army has yet to dislodge the Taliban from the scenic valley. The Pakistani military, beset by problems with poor morale and a poor counterinsurgency strategy, have made few gains since launching their ground offensive after weeks of bombarding civilian centers.
[..]
Usually Bill and I are real close in our opinions, but in this isolated case we disagree, and for reasons that are likely a one-time shot. In my opinion, we'll see a stalemate only if Perv loses his nerve again or Kiyani's conked with a golf ball still, I admit, a possibility, but I doubt it at this stage.
The "Taliban" are, in fact, being dislodged from Swat. The Mighty Pak Army's racked up some pretty impressive numbers they're claiming 220 hard boyz banged in the past ten days, versus 15 of their own dead. Mullah Fazlullah's illegal radio station is off the air and he's nowhere to be found. His spokesman, Maulana Sirajuddin, is ditto. Fazlullah's brother and Sirajuddin's nephew were nabbed with 40 hard boyz trying to hightail it out of town. One of the brother's bodyguards was wearing a boom belt. Rather than use it, he meekly raised his hands. The turbans have "vacated their trenches," exercising the better part of valor. To me, that looks like a rout.
There are Taliban, and then there are "Taliban." The "Taliban" in this case are the TNSM, the goobers who rode to the aid of the Talibs in Afghanistan on pickup trucks six years ago, waving AKs and swords, hollering, grimacing fearsomely and rolling their eyes. The ones who weren't slaughtered by the Northern Alliance were held for ransom. Sufi Mohammad, the leader of the TNSM, was jugged, for seven years if I remember correctly, as much for his own protection as anything else.
Mullah Fazlullah is Sufi Mohammad's son-in-law. Half of the current TNSM fiasco's purpose was to have Sufi Mohammad sprung from jug. He's 75 years old, frail, with diabetes, and still nuts. The other half involved the demands for the institution of shariah in Swat, which still could happen that's one of the planks in the MMA platform. The inspiration for this whole action comes from the Lal Masjid episode, which indicates the TNSM's leadership isn't really good at defining "success."
I snarked when the Paks started moving troops into the area that they were starting out easy with the TNSM. It was snark, but it was also correct. Even with Uzbeks and the occasional Arab for leavening, their cake of victory came out pretty flat. TNSM is definitely the minor leagues when it comes to "Taliban." Their tactics are limited -- without having actually seen them in action, I'd guess that all assaults are frontal assaults. They dug trenches, fergawdsake and they no doubt waved their manhood guns at the gunships approaching to strafe those trenches. The Mighty Pak Army taking on Baitullah Mehsud would look different indeed.
However, given the infusion of self-confidence that comes with a major victory which the TNSM collapse could be painted as that might throw enough backbone into the local commanders to take on Baitullah, should he get too far out of line. That would probably get them a thorough nose-twisting in conjunction with a shoe leather massage of the gluteal area. But it doesn't actually have to come to that. There are lots of negotiations going on, both backdoor and through the never-ending jirgas. The prospect of the turbans being hit by "real" soldiers rather than frontier levies strengthens the government's hand. 250 frontier levies will surrender without a shot being fired, and they make good bargaining chips. Baitullah losing 220 of his tribemen to a mere 15 dead Punjabis is a different story. Swat shows that it's a possibility, however remote.
Posted by: ed ||
11/30/2007 07:53 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Ledeen: ... I agree with Dr. Gunaratna and Tom, that bombing Iran would not be a happy event. Indeed, I think it would demonstrate the failure of Western policy across the board. But I fear we are headed in that direction, since nobody has the stomach or the will to support democratic revolution in Iran. So one day we will face the awful choice neatly put by Sarkozy and Kouchner: Iran with the bomb, or bomb Iran. Ugh.
Hobson's choice.
Schippert: ... In short, to afford the world's premier state sponsor of terrorism [Iran] the game of nuance is a fool's errand.
The discussion should not be made or perceived as one of whether to counter-attack the Iranian terror machine, but how to counter attack it. That, I believe, risks being lost in this discussion.
A few things are certain as the terror persists and the race to nuclear arms continues hardly abated. The clock has run out on the ill-conducted Radio Farda and VOA information campaigns and it is running out on limited international and unilateral sanction regimes. The IAEA is incapable of monitoring a recalcitrant Iranian nuclear program, partly because it lacks any enforcement mechanism and partly because it lacks the will. It was after all from ElBaradei's own lips that came the words, "I have no brief other than to make sure that we don't go into another war or we go crazy into killing each other." Silly us for thinking it was to investigate and inspect.
By AlBaradei's own admission, he would rather dither interminably than see substantive action taken against Iran. AlBaradei is nothing but an Islamic collaborator in Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb. He should be tried and executed for his complicity in this terrorist charade.
#2
Gunaratna: Attacking Iran will be much more devastating for the United States than attacking Iraq. Iran will retaliate with strikes against US targets both in the US mainland and overseas. Furthermore, Iran is next door to Afghanistan and to Iraq, the two most important theatres of conflict for the US and the West.
Attacking Iraq was in no way devastating to the United States; most people are hardly aware there is a war going on. If Iran "retaliates" against the United States mainland then all Hell itself will descend upon them. Furthermore, Iran is surrounded by United States forces in the Gulf, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
#5
Israel has said it believes, given analyses of Iran's milpol history since 1979, Iran's most likely method of retaliation in near-term agz any US-Allied attack would be via PROXY/
SURROGATE TERROR. PRE-ANNAPOLIS > OLMERT > has recently asserted that ISRAEL WILL NEVER ALLOW IRAN TO DEV NUKE WEAPONS OR BOMBS.
Add to MOUD's, etc. on-going rhetoric and escalations over Iran's nuke rights + reports of Iranian nucdev, + NO "REGIME CHANGE"?, A US-IRAN CONFLICT BEFORE 2008 US ELEX = JAN 2009 REMAINS HIGHLY REALISTIC AND LIKELY. Iff the USA or Iran do not attack or war agz one another before 2008 elex = Jan 2009, ISRAEL UNILATER WILL. IRAN WILL PLAN ON THE USA-NATO RESERVING ITS STRENGTH FOR ANY POTENTIAL RUSSIAN-CHIN MIL INTERVENTION OR RETALIATION AGZ ISRAEL.
#6
And , lest we fergit, IRAN's post-1979 CONSTITUTION > mandates support for Islamic "GLOBALISM" = GLOBAL ISLAMIC-JIHADIST STATE. IOW, Iran's Govt is constitutionally charged with Iran NOT remaining a REGIONAL POWER NOR TRANSREGIONAL MINOR = "BIG POWER". Iran's Govt is charged to make Iran a de facto GLOBAL SUPERPOWER, + UNIPOLAR [IRAN-CENTRIC/CONTROLED OWG WORLD STATE] AMAP.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
