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True
North Archives - October 23, 2007
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Featured
Articles
Vermont’s
Economic & Demographic Crisis: Its Symptoms
By Tom Licata
Here is a list of Vermont's
unfunded liabilities and expenses that total approximately $3.5 billion.
Senator Shumlin is on record as saying: "Vermonters do not have the additional
earning capacity to raise [even] $250-$350 million." Folks, look at the
numbers and demographics below; we’re not going to tax ourselves out of
this hole:
The
Coming Carbon Carnival
By John McClaughry
 The
Democratic leaders of the legislature, terrified by the Menace of Global
Warming, spent most of this year's session trying to find one or more taxes
to increase to pay for a new government "thermal efficiency" utility. This
entity would spend $6 million a year to send its employees around the state
to explain to Vermonters that if they would just curb their consumption
of heating fuels, they would save money! They finally settled on taxing
the electricity produced by the state's cleanest, most reliable, lowest-price
provider of electrical energy, the Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear power
plant.
The
Politics of Personal Transformation
By Robert Maynard
I would like to focus on
the central issue of relationship and transformation, for these are the
concepts that have always been at the heart of Christianity. The dying
of the old self and the subsequent new birth in relationship to God are
the heart and soul of Christianity. On this point, I have no argument with
Professor [Biblical scholar Marcus] Borg. Where I dissent is his contention
that "Progressive Christianity" is somehow more genuine. Borg described
progressive Christianity as a "way" or a "path" that is politically as
well as theologically progressive: "It affirms God's passion as justice
and peace. So its political issues are very different than the political
issues of the Christian Right, …"
Here we arrive at the crux
of the matter, Borg is trying to enlist the growing social influence of
Christians in the service of "Progressive Politics". While it is true that
Christianity affirms God’s passion for justice, I do not buy into the fact
that God’s notion of justice coincides with the Progressive notion of justice.
Progressives tend to buy into Philosopher John Rawls conception of Justice,
in particular, the notion of "Distributive Justice". Is this the notion
of justice promoted in the Judeo-Christian Bible? The Progressive notion
of justice is more of a collectivist social notion being imposed from the
top down by the state. How does that match up with the ideal of personal
transformation through a direct relationship with God and the individual
human soul? The latter view is one of social justice that comes from the
bottom up as a result of individual transformations. The goal is personal
transformation, social change comes about as a result of such transformations.
Let us take a closer look at the origins of the Biblical view of justice.
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Quotable
"Arguably the biggest threat
facing the U.S. today is our own fiscal irresponsibility, and very few
people are willing to state the facts and speak the truth." "Continuing
on this unsustainable path will gradually erode, if not suddenly damage,
our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately our domestic tranquility
and national security." -- David Walker, Comptroller General of
the United States
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Vermont
Weekly News Round-Up
Problems
on the Horizon
From VermontTiger.com, October
17, 2007
Vermont's electricity grid
is linked to New England's, and if Vermont Yankee goes offline in 2012
and we lose HydroQuebec contracts around that time, there's not going to
be any spare New England capacity to bail Vermont out. The result
will be skyrocketing electricity prices, as Vermont utilities will be forced
to pay the spot price for power. It won't be a pretty sight.
Ignoring
The Bear In The Living Room
Caledonian Record Editorial,October
17, 2007
A couple of months ago, the
Tax Foundation published a study that showed Vermont to be the highest
per capita taxing state in the union. That didn't come as a surprise to
Vermont taxpayers who have known for a long time that our tax burden is
oppressive, more so than that of other Americans. It did, though, distress
Vermont's Progressives and Democrats because it threw a monkey wrench into
their plans to push new taxes onto Vermonters at the next legislative session
in order to advance their social agenda. After all, if our taxes are already
at the apex of the public tax burden, why would anyone undertake to make
them even higher? So the Democrats, aided and abetted by the Joint Fiscal
Committee, published their own tax study. Not surprisingly, the Democrats
found that Vermonters' tax burden is not the highest in the nation.
VTNEA
says jump. Will D's say how high (do you want us to raise property taxes)?
From Rob Roper, October
18, 2007
Today, Angelo Dorta, the
VTNEA and the National Education Association (NEA) are calling on the Democrats
in Montpelier to undo the bipartisan (23-4 in the Senate, 70-60 in the
House) compromise on education quality and cost control, Act 82. Vermonters,
who are screaming for property tax relief, now have a crystal clear opportunity
to see if the Democrat super-majority in Montpelier is capable of governing
on behalf of the people, or if it is little more than a tool of this special
interest group. We call on Democrat legislators--particularly Speaker Symington
and Senator Shumlin--to reiterate their support for this modest step that
could help slow the increases in Vermont's oppressive property tax burden.
If they choose to remain silent or speak unconvincingly, we will know where
their allegiance really lies: with the union bosses and NOT with our taxpayers
or local voters.
Push
Comes To Shove
VermontTiger.com, October
17, 2007
The Entergy Corporation --
owner of that satanic facility known as Vermont Yankee -- is being accused
of employing dirty tricks to advance its sinister cause. Namely the
relicensing of the plant which, by the way, supplies around 1/3 of Vermont's
electricity at less than market. So the question would seem to be
not, "Is Entergy using questionable tactics to move opinion?" but "Why
does it have to?"
Peter
Welch Reverts To Type
Caledonian Record Editorial,
October 19, 2007
Back when Vermont elected
Peter Welch to replace Bernie Sanders in the U.S. House of Representatives,
we had some hope that he would do his own thinking and not become a rubber
stamp for the far left of the Democratic Party. After all, for the last
few years, as president pro tem of the Vermont Senate, he was on the left,
but not so far that he was a doctrinaire liberal leftist. Now, we aren't
so sure.
Minding
the Celtic Tiger
From The American (from
VermontTiger.com), October 21, 2007
We'll always link to a story
about Ireland's
economic breakthrough. Would that Vermont followed the Irish
lead. Then, when people used the phrase Vermont Tiger, they would
be talking about more than a web
site.
# # #
Freedom
Under Fire:
The
Global War on Terrorism
Holy
War and Anti War: An Axis against Nature
By
Walid Phares, The American Thinker, October 15, 2007
The oddest of all factional
relationships is the open alliance between the Jihadists and the so-called
"antiwar" neo-Left movement in the West. The jumble of causes thrown together
is mind-bending: globalization hobnobs with the caliphate, class
struggle with Wahabism, proletariat with infidels, and North Korea with
Palestine. While still shedding each others' blood, the Reds (neo-Left)
and the Dark Greens (Islamists) are conducting a joint offensive against
both democracy-pushing America and the democracy-craving Middle East. They
are not letting old or new grudges get in their way.
Portents
of A Nuclear Al-Qaeda
By David Ignatius, The
Washington Post, October 17, 2007
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is paid
to think about the unthinkable. As the Energy
Department's director of intelligence, he's responsible for
gathering information about the threat that a terrorist group will attack
America with a nuclear weapon. With his shock of white hair and piercing
eyes, Mowatt-Larssen looks like a man who has seen a ghost. And when you
listen to a version of the briefing he has been giving recently to President
Bush and other top officials, you begin to understand why. He
is convinced that al-Qaeda
is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb that will leave the ultimate terrorist
signature -- a mushroom cloud. ... Mowatt-Larssen argues that for nearly
a decade before Sept. 11, al-Qaeda was seeking to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. As early as 1993, Osama
bin Laden offered $1.5 million to buy uranium for a nuclear
device, according to testimony presented in federal court in February 2001.
When the al-Qaeda leader was asked in 1998 if he had nuclear or chemical
weapons, he responded: "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is
a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank
God for enabling me to do so."
Putin's
Persian Pals: Using Iran to Vex the West
Wants Tehran to join
OPEC-like cartel for natural gas.
By Peter Brookes, The New
York Post, October 18, 2007
At his press conference yes
terday, President Bush seemed surprised to learn of Russian President Vladimir
Putin's comments in Tehran rejecting the use of force in the Caspian region
- a clear warning to the United States not to use the military option to
deal with Iran's nuclear program. In fact, Putin plainly means to use Iran
as a lever against America and the West. His historic visit to Tehran this
week - the first by a Russian leader since Stalin met the Allies in Tehran
in 1943 - was just the latest sign.
Pak
Military Offers AQ Safe Passage to Afghanistan?
By Steve Schippert, National
Review Online, October 18, 2007
Syed Saleem Shahzad is reporting
that a "top Pakistani security official" has told him on condition of anonymity
that the Pakistani military will soon begin commencing operations "to pacify
Waziristan once and for all." Serious questions remain about the Pakistani
military's ability to do so where, unlike Iraq, al-Qaeda enjoys broad popular
support throughout much of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along
the Pak-Afghan border, including North and South Waziristan.
Whatever one thinks of the
stated intent to"pacify Waziristan once and for all," leaders should pause
to consider what Musharraf's government offered al-Qaeda and the Taliban
— according to Shahzad's "top Pakistani security official" source — in
order to avoid the confrontation the official says the Pakistani military
now seeks.
Radical
Islam's Willing Bloggers
By Patrick
Poole, The American Thinker, October 2007
The burgeoning left wing
smear industry, set up to manufacture attacks on conservatives, has its
own radical Islam sector. I know this by personal experience. Earlier this
week I reported that a known HAMAS operative was scheduled to speak at
the Ohio State Capitol later this month (see Thomas Lifson's related blog
entry). Within hours, a leftist attack blogger affiliated with the
Ohio Democratic Party had published an ad hominem broadside in response
parroting talking points prepared by the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR).
The
First and Last Enemy: Jew-Hatred in Islam
By Andrew
G. Bostom, The American Thinker, October 19, 2007
Fawaz
Damra, the former Imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland was convicted
in 2004 for lying to immigration officials about his links to the terrorist
group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and subsequently deported. Yet Damra
was touted as a promoter of interfaith dialogue even after
evidence of his participation in fundraising
events for the PIJ, was produced, along with a videotape of the Imam
telling a
crowd of Muslim supporters in 1991 that they should aim "...a rifle
at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and that is the
sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews."
As I will demonstrate, Imam
Damra's blatant Jew-hatred was fully sanctioned by -- indeed he was merely
paraphrasing, and quoting directly from -- the core religious texts of
Islam. And the historical
treatment of Jews in Muslim societies has been consistent with this
sacralized religious bigotry. Sheer ignorance of such theology and history,
combined with craven denial, allowed Damra's words to go unchallenged for
more than a decade. However the Damra affair is pathognomonic of a much
larger and more dangerous phenomenon: the complete, often willful failure
to examine and understand the living legacy of Islam's foundational anti-Jewish
animus.
What
A Difference A Year Makes
By Michael Barone, National
Review Online, October 22, 2007
Things are not working out
as Democratic congressional leaders expected. For the first eight months
of this year, they struggled to find some way to shut down the American
military effort in Iraq. They took it for granted that we were stuck in
a quagmire in Iraq, with continuous high casualties and very little to
show for them. ... Then, over the summer, the news out of Iraq started
to get better. ...
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From
Elsewhere
Moral
legislation
Part 8 of 'The Crisis
of the Republic'
By Alan Keyes, 2007 Renew
America
In a republic such as the
United States is supposed to be, the sovereignty of the people derives
from and reflects the personal sovereignty of the individuals who
comprise it. Therefore, the capacity for private choice and the
nature of the choices made are inherently matters of public consequence.
... Any choice that involves a judgment about good and bad, and
that defines right or wrong action in terms of that judgment, is a moral
choice. This means that when, by law, government restricts private
choice in the name of health or a clean environment, it legislates morality.
7
Things To Know About the Clintons
By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.,
Human Events, October 18, 2007
This week, it was reported
in the authoritative Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill, that Don Van Natta
Jr. and Jeff Gerth included some unsavory news about Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton in "Her Way," their recent book about her. Hillary, during the
1992 presidential campaign, "listened to a secretly recorded audiotape
of a phone conversation of Clinton critics." Washington observers appeared
shocked.
Mein
Gott, where have they been all these years? The Clintons have engaged
in brute behavior for decades, much of it a matter of record. The Hill's
report moves me to list seven issues every American should know about the
Clintons before 2008. Journalists should be particularly interested, as
well as Democrats intent on avoiding a repeat of the Clinton 1990s.
Related: Sandy
Berger and the Real Hillary Clinton
Related: Dishwashers
For Clinton
The
Uncivilizing Revolution of The West
By Reginald Firehammer,
The Automist
If it were possible to bring
someone from the nineteenth century to the world of today, it would be
totally incomprehensible to them. The differences in the two periods (1900s
vs 2000s) as described by Michael Crichton are primarily scientific and
technological. If you could bring someone from the 1950s into today's world,
they also would not recognize it; they would, in fact, be horrified. There
is no doubt in my mind, that if they believed in Hell, they would be convinced
that is where they had landed. Some of the difference between the 50s and
today are scientific and technological, but the primary differences, the
ones that would scandalize the visitor from the fifties are cultural and
social, because what they would be seeing is a society that is losing the
last vestiges of Western Civilization.
Earmarxists
Commemorate the Hippie Summer of Love
By Jed Babbin, Human Events,
October 17, 2007
Is there any wonder that
-- according to RealClearPolitics -- Congress’ job approval is still under
25%? The wonder is that anyone still supports the Reid-Pelosi two-ring
circus. It’s fair to ask: do all those who still like Congress benefit
directly from the dispensation of earmarks? The Earmarxists are still in
charge. Among them, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer are earning the reputation
as champ spenders. This time, according to Senate sources, the two New
York senators have come up with a beaut: $1 million of your hard-earned
(and easily taxed) money goes to the Hippie Summer of Love Flashback museum.
It’s tacked onto the 2008 appropriations bill for the departments of Labor,
Health and Human Services, and Education.
Barnes:
"The Big Mo"
By Fred Barnes, The Weekly
Standard, October 17, 2007
The political direction in
Washington is shifting. The White House, in
a defensive crouch for much of 2007, is beginning to go on offense. The
Democratic Congress is increasingly on defense. If this trend continues,
the dreary prospects for Republicans in the 2008 election may improve.
Who’s
For S-CHIP? Everyone, Unfortunately.
If only Bush was as bad
as Democrats say he is.
By Peter Suderman, National
Review Online, October 18, 2007
Conservatives have taken
up plenty of column space decrying the Democrats’ proposed expansion of
the program. Few, however, have bothered to note that Bush’s proposal isn’t
much better, especially when you take into consideration his recent indications
that he might be willing to spend even more than he first proposed. And
make no mistake, despite all the fluffy talk about helping children, S-CHIP
is a program that should be opposed in its entirety. The Cato Institute’s
Michael Cannon has argued
that the program boosts drug prices for everyone in the country, as drug
companies make up for the lower prices paid by the government by padding
the prices for the rest of us. Meanwhile, he says, the program doesn’t
help the poor, but rather encourages them to stay in the low-income brackets
covered by S-CHIP. When working harder to earn more money results in a
net loss, why bother? ...
Yet the White House, and
indeed, most Republicans in Congress, has decided to fall in line with
the Democrats’ broad goals for the program, choosing only to make weak
arguments about how much additional money ought to be spent. It’s no wonder
the party is in such bad shape. When all Republicans have to offer is a
watered down version of program backed by Democrats, it shouldn’t be a
surprise when the public doesn’t bite."
An
Inconvenient Peace Prize
By Bjorn Lomborg , The Boston
Globe, October 13, 2007
This Year's Nobel Peace Prize
justly rewards the thousands of scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. These scientists are engaged in excellent, painstaking
work that establishes exactly what the world should expect from climate
change. The other award winner, former US vice president Al Gore, has spent
much more time telling us what to fear. While the IPCC's estimates and
conclusions are grounded in careful study, Gore doesn't seem to be similarly
restrained.
Related: Al
Gore's Nobel Propaganda Prize
Limbaugh
Letter Fetches $2.1 Million on eBay
From Fox News, October 21,
2007
The conservative radio talk-show
host turned an inflammatory letter written by Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid and signed by 41 of his fellow Democrats into a more than $4.2 million
gold mine for the kids of Marines and law enforcement personnel killed
in the line of duty, all courtesy of eBay.
ABC's
Couric Portrays Plame as Heroic Victim of White House 'Smear'
From the Media Research
Center CyberAlert, October 22, 2007
Katie Couric's Sunday 60
Minutes interview, to promote Valerie Plame's new book, Fair
Game: My Life as a Spy, framed the story just as the media have all
along -- Painting Plame as a heroic victim of an orchestrated "smear"...
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