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True
North Archives - July 31, 2007
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Articles
Vermont
Left Behind by U.S. High Tech. Export Surge
by Robert Maynard
So, not only were we unable
to take advantage of a robust period of U.S. high tech. export growth,
we actually saw a decline in our tech. exports. Far from taking the lead
in this area, we had the largest decrease of tech export of any state in
the nation. The report does not say "percentage decrease", it says "decrease".
This is in absolute terms, not relative terms. Given the small size of
Vermont’s economy relative to just about every other state, to have the
largest decrease, in absolute terms, is quite some feat. It is not a feat
that should make us feel good about our economic future.
Another
Middle-Class Exodus? Part II
By Martin Harris
 It’s
no secret, though not widely publicized, that the cultural-behavior surroundings
parents seek for their kids aren’t "diverse." There are whole sets of behaviors
which parents who select a suburb (or, within a city, a neighborhood) wish
to avoid when they choose to move into a particular town school district
or neighborhood school sub-district. To a substantial extent, the variations
in cultural behaviors correlate with family income levels, with in-school
achievement and with post-school outcomes.
Showdown
at Bradford Square
By John McClaughry
A mile and a half south of
the Connecticut River village of Bradford, a land use case is unfolding
that may have widespread repercussions throughout the state.
# # #
Quotable
"Faith and reason are like
two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth;
and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word,
to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also
come to the fullness of truth about themselves." --Pope John Paul II,Fides
et Ratio
# # #
Vermont
Weekly News Round-Up
A
Stuck Phonograph Record
Caledonian Record Editorial,
July 28, 2007
Over the past few days, the
Democratic leadership in Montpelier has been unveiling its list of priority
issues for the next legislative session. Among other things, they will
re-mount a charge to save the world from global warming. They will plow
forward with the proposal to create an entirely unnecessary, redundant,
and as yet theoretical energy efficiency utility that will eat taxpayers'
dollars in order to give away more tax dollars to Vermonters who can well
afford to make their own homes energy efficient. And they will set the
stage for advancement of gay marriage through a bogus "independent" commission
now ready to study why Vermont shouldn't legalize same-sex marriages.
Related: Vision
treatment
Judges
Who Shouldn't Be
Caledonian Record Editorial,
Thursday July 26, 2007
We continue to be shocked
and dismayed by the actions of some judges whose poor judgment ought to
disqualify them from sitting on the bench.
State
Faces Uncertain Fnancial Future
By Nancy Remsen, Burlington
Free Press, July 25, 2007
The state's economic advisers
project itsy-bitsy growth in tax revenues over the coming 24 months, but
warned Gov. Jim Douglas and legislative leaders Tuesday that the picture
could reverse quickly. "It's a lot more vulnerable than we've seen in a
long time," said Tom Kavet, an economist hired by the Legislature.
Of
Foxes And Chicken Coops
Caledonian Record Editorial,
July 27, 2007
Both Shumlin and Symington
publicly support same-sex marriage. Shumlin, with his usual overstatement,
said of same-sex marriage in Vermont, "It's not a question of Yes or No.
It's a question of when." Symington framed the question this way: "It's
time to ask whether it is in Vermont's interest to continue to maintain
a separate legal status for same-sex couples."
Eating
Local?
VermomtTiger.com July 26,
2007
However, Localvores, as they
call themselves, use a different metric. Some want to eat food grown
only in their state. Taken to its extreme, why put the boundary
at a state line? Why not a county line? Or a town's boundary?
Why not eat only food grown on your road? Why not be self sufficient
in your household? For tens of thousands of years that's how people
lived. And died. Young.
What's
a Democrat?
VermomtTiger.com, July 27,
2007
So let me get this straight.
The leader of the Democrats in the state Senate says that a long time Republican
state Senator can put together a coalition of Democrats and Republicans,
run as an independent and defeat a Republican governor. Now that's thinking
out of the box.
# # #
Freedom
Under Fire:
The
Global War on Terrorism
Morally
Paralyzed
by Thomas Sowell, Human
Events, July 24, 2007
"Moral paralysis" came from
many things. The death of a million French soldiers in the First World
War and disillusionment with the peace that followed cast a pall over a
whole generation. Pacifism became vogue among the intelligentsia and spread
into educational institutions. As early as 1932, Winston Churchill said:
"France, though armed to the teeth, is pacifist to the core." It was morally
paralyzed. History may be interesting but it is the present and the future
that pose the crucial question: Is America today the France of yesterday?
A
War We Just Might Win
By Michael E. O’Hanlon &
Kenneth M. Pollack, New York Times, July 30, 2007
Viewed from Iraq, where we
just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian
personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. ... the administration’s
critics... seem unaware of the significant changes taking place. Here is
the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting
somewhere in Iraq...
Winning
in Iraq: and Losing in Washington
By Ralph Peters, New York
Post, July 26, 2007
To a military professional,
the tactical progress made in Iraq over the last few months is impressive.
To a member of Congress, it's an annoyance. The herd animals on Capitol
Hill - from both parties - just can't wait to go over the cliff on Iraq.
And even when the media mention one or two of the successes achieved by
our troops, the reports are grudging.
Iraq
Is a Proxy War with Iran
by Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker,
Human Events, July 25, 2007
Given the overwhelming evidence
of Iranian support for both the extremist militias of the Sunni al-Qaéda
and the Shi‘ite Badr and Wolf Brigades and al-Mahdi Army that have caused
so much chaos and destruction to Iraqi society, it should be a clear sign
that Iran is in control when both Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki make frequent visits to Tehran to consult with
Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It should not come as a great surprise that the al-Maliki government is
not meeting its commitments to the US. Ayatollah Khamenei doesn’t want
to see America help create a real democracy in Iraq, and al-Maliki is following
Khamenei’s orders to prevent the rise of an independent, secular Iraq.
Saudi
in the Classroom
A fundamental front
in the war.
By Stanley Kurtz, National
Review Online, July 25, 2007
Unless we counteract the
influence of Saudi money on the education of the young, we’re going to
find it very difficult to win the war on terror. I only wish I was referring
to Saudi-funded madrassas in Pakistan. Unfortunately, I’m talking about
K-12 education in the United States. Believe it or not, the Saudis have
figured out how to make an end-run around America’s K-12 curriculum safeguards,
thereby gaining control over much of what children in the United States
learn about the Middle East. While we’ve had only limited success paring
back education for Islamist fundamentalism abroad, the Saudis have taken
a surprising degree of control over America’s Middle-East studies curriculum
at home.
Terrorist
'Charity' on Trial
by Stephen J. Landes, Human
Events, July 25, 2007
Moussa Abu Marzook came to
the United States in 1983 as an emissary of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the head
of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. Marzook was charged with building a
Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure in North America. When he arrived he
attached himself to the nascent Islamic Association for Palestine, a small
organization designed to inculcate the philosophy and activism of the Brotherhood
in a growing Palestinian Diaspora community. Moussa Abu Marzook now sits
in Damascus with Khalid Meshal as the leaders of Hamas, the renamed Gaza
branch of the Brotherhood. Today, Marzook’s brother-in-law and cousin and
Meshal’s half-brother, are in a Dallas court with four others, as defendants
in a criminal case. The Department of Justice charges them as principals
of the Holy Land Foundation, once the largest Muslim charity in North America.
The defendants are accused of using Holy Land to finance Hamas terrorism.
Turning
Against Terror
Los Angeles Times, July
25, 2007
The sages teach that tragedy
is instructive -- if its bitter lessons can be swallowed. Now a new poll
finds that support for suicide bombings and other violence against civilians
has plunged across the Muslim world, markedly, though not exclusively,
in countries that have experienced such attacks. The data, released Tuesday
by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, point out a clear path toward Western
reconciliation with the estranged Islamic world -- if we're deft enough
to take it.
Al-Qaeda
is the Main Enemy in Iraq, too
By Robert J. Caldwell, Human
Events, July 23, 2007
What they might not know
is that al-Qaeda's franchise operation in Iraq, formally known as al-Qaeda
in Iraq, or AQI, is also currently the chief threat to U.S. and coalition
forces there and to the democratically elected Iraqi government. That contradicts
a constant refrain of Iraq war critics - that fighting in Iraq distracts
from the war we should be waging, against al-Qaeda. Well, guess who we're
fighting in Iraq.
Moderate
Islam Is No Islam
By Amil Imani, Freedom of
Iran, July 15, 2007
Many people have asked me
why I have put my life in harm’s way by tangling with Islam and why I do
what I do. Born in a Muslim family and having witnessed first-hand the
horrors and indignity that Islamofascism visits on people it subjugates,
I have taken it upon myself to do my part in defeating this ideology of
oppression, hate and violence. Islam is wrapped in deception as a spiritual
dogma or religion and is more dangerous than Nazism, Communism and Fascism.
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From
Elsewhere
The
Gospel of Freedom
By Arnold Kling, TCS Daily
The
Acton Institute has produced the most subversive movie I have ever
seen. The
Call of the Entrepreneur, which is being released on an agonizingly
slow schedule, is a threat to tyranny everywhere, including here at home.
The movie's message is that entrepreneurs are creators of wealth, Wall
Street financiers are enablers of economic progress, and the villains of
the world are people like the Communist leaders in China and American religious
leaders who rail against capitalism.
‘War
On Poverty’ Remix Won’t Work Either
By Anthony B. Bradley, Acton
Institute, July 25, 2007
Responsible fatherhood is
accomplished not by cash assistance but by a morally formed sense of integrity,
responsibility, and character. No government program can develop a man’s
identity nor cultivate a disposition of life-long committed love, affection,
and duty to his wife and kids. However, government can support fatherhood
by ensuring conditions for the free operation of the intermediate institutions—families,
churches, fraternal societies—that have historically and successfully formed
men. Government, on the other hand, can interfere with marriage and provide
disincentives for fatherly responsibility, as demonstrated during America’s
experiment with pre-1996 welfare programs that subsidized, and therefore
encouraged, fatherlessness.
Now
for the Good News
By Indur Goklany, Cato Institute
Environmentalists and globalization
foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of
energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological
change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and
environmental well-being. Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States'
population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions
by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100.
Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major
disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed
between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer
rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer
deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in
population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100
deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today. These improvements
haven't been restricted to the United States. It's a global phenomenon.
Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled, from 31 years in 1900
to 67 years today.
Regulation
Costs $1 Trillion
By Clyde Wayne Crews, American
Conservative Union Foundation
Congress is currently considering
the president's proposed $2.9 trillion federal budget. While federal spending
consumes an awesome 20% of nation's GDP, the budget process at least allows
taxpayers to know on what Washington is spending. But there is much more
to government's reach in the economy than direct spending. The costs to
the public of complying with federal health, safety, environmental and
economic regulations appear nowhere in the federal budget. Economist Mark
Crain's research for the U.S. Small Business Administration finds that
in 2006 regulatory compliance cost Americans $1.14 trillion. Astoundingly,
that approaches half of last year's total federal spending of $2.6 trillion,
and exceeds 9% of U.S. GDP — and tops Canada's $1 trillion GDP.
Health
Care: Government vs. Private
By Walter E. Williams,
The Patriot Post, July 25, 2007
Do we want the government
employees who run the troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center to be in
charge of our entire health care system? Or, would you like the people
who deliver our mail to also deliver health care services? How would you
like the people who run the motor vehicles department, the government education
system, foreign intelligence and other government agencies to also run
our health care system? After all, they are not motivated by the quest
for profits, and that might mean they're truly wonderful, selfless, caring
people. As for me, I'd choose profit-driven people to provide my health
care services, people with motives like those who deliver goods to my supermarket,
deliver my overnight mail, produce my computer and software programs, assemble
my car and produce a host of other goods and services that I use.
Why
The Democrats are Ducking Fox News
By Rick Moran, The
American Thinker, July 24, 2007
Many of the questions chosen
among thousands of YouTube submissions appeared to be selected more for
their entertainment value than for the way the question addressed a specific
issue. And those questions that did confront an issue were so general in
nature it allowed even the dumbest of candidates (Biden) to hit it out
of the park. In the midst of a war involving 160,000 Americans in Iraq,
there was no question - not one - about terrorism. And given the recent
eruption on Capitol Hill over immigration, not one question was directed
toward that issue either.
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