GLD: Streettracks Gold ETF

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Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

The Pope's [John Paul II] condemnation of stem-cell research on
human embryos was greeted by the usual derision,
sophisticated and otherwise. While the prestige news
media cited polls showing that even most Catholics favor
such research (see?), callers to C-SPAN emitted a
ceaseless flow of ignorantly anti-Catholic sentiment. You
had to hear it to believe it: the Pope has no moral
authority because other popes have had girlfriends and
taught that the earth was flat and failed to condemn the
Holocaust, so there. As Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty
says, after a similar exercise in ratiocination, "That's
logic." It's also a reflection of American education,
state-run and, alas, Catholic.

Joe Sobran (2001)

Oil Pick

Article sur le pic pétrolier

U.S. hospitality to Ahmadinejad demoralizes Iranian opposition

All of the arguments about whether to allow Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University last month boil down to one factor - internal opposition within Iran. Ahmadinejad faces at least some opposition within his own country, as today's Breitbart article indicates:

An estimated 100 students staged a rare demonstration Monday against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling him a "dictator" and scuffling with hardline students at Tehran University.
Ahmadinejad, who was giving a speech to a select group at the university to mark the beginning of the academic year, ignored the chants of "death to the dictator" and continued with his speech on the merits of science and the pitfalls of Western-style democracy, witnesses said.

The protesters scuffled with hardline students who were chanting "thank you president" while police looked on from outside the university gates. The protesters dispersed after the car carrying Ahmadinejad left the campus.

That opposition has now been shown film of Ahmadinejad being welcomed in the United States and at Columbia University. Iran's internal opposition knows only what the government wants them to know. The internal opposition now has the impression that they will receive no help from the U.S., that Ahmadinejad has bought respectability around the world and that they (the opposition) are isolated and without allies. No matter how much the crowd laughed at Ahmadinejad, his very presence in the U.S. among elite professionals and officials sent the worst possible message to his opponents.

Today's news provides all of the justification we need to keep Ahmadinejad out of this country and away from our crowds and institutions. We learned no new information from Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia. Ahmadinejad moderated none of his views upon listening to our students and academic officials.

There have been other protestors, such as rioters protesting gas prices or shortages. All such opposition will be demoralized by the American hospitality shown to Ahmadinejad.

Iranian gas riots - June 2007 - AP











Previous - B. Hussein Obama wants to meet with foreign dictators

Quote of the day - Peg Noonan

. . . . Hillary Clinton and President Bush, both of whom often seem to be trying to remember the answer they'd agreed upon with staff. What's the phrase we use about education? Hit Search Function. Hit Open. Right-click. "Equity in education is essential, Tim . . ."

Peg Noonan 10-5-07

GM - UAW settlement

Liberal Quicksand speculates on the possibility that the recent GM-Union settlement will end up being paid for directly by the taxpayers:

GM gets a ‘going broke’ retirement plan off its responsibility list. They will pay the UAW now. It is the UAW’s ‘problem’ – not that they need to fear that at all.

The Democrat sheepeople ‘the very rank and defiled’ will whine like the spoiled brats – not if, but when the money is gone. I can see the MSPAM stories now of the ‘hard-working’ union man who can’t even afford his beer or lottery tickets anymore. They will be championed as victims. But they are victims of their own liberalism.

Think about all that money just sitting in a union trust fund. I know the union big bosses and the DNC are thinking about it.

Regardless of whether the taxpayers pay directly for this particular settlement, years of union activitiy have already cost us our industrial base.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn [Bill Clinton as Benny Hill]

It's hard not to feel a sneaking sympathy for President Clinton as he tries to shake off Mrs Jones - the kind of sympathy one feels for Benny Hill in those speeded-up musical finales, when Benny, the leering predator-turned-prey, finds himself pursued by irate dolly birds and their menfolk. Substitute a high-speed Hail To The Chief on the soundtrack and a posse of ambitious lawyers, and that's the Clinton second term in a nutshell.

Mark Steyn - 10-19-97 [3 months prior to the beginning of the Lewinsky scandal].