Musharraf: Rape is working out pretty good for them
Every second person now wants to come up and get all the [pause] because there is so much of finances. Dr. Shazia, I don't know. But maybe she's a case of money, that she wants to make money.
Well, since every second person is female, I guess that means all the Pakistani women are claiming rape to get visas. Doesn't say much for Pakistani men, one way or the other, General.
If only Elsa had known the "popular term," this would not have been necessary:
At least we'll always have Islamabad.
Posted by: Nick on 09.19.05 @ 09:20 AM CST [Link] [711 Comments]
Speaking of the slippery slope...
How long before an actress shows up at the Emmys topless?
How about topless and bottomless?
Posted by: Nick on 09.19.05 @ 09:04 AM CST [Link] [102 Comments]
Sri Lanka and the Slippery Slope
Yet another example that the slippery slope is not a logical fallacy, despite what you may have learned in rhetoric and composition:
The Sri Lankan Cabinet has decided to reduce the age of consent for sexual encounters from 16 to 13 years.
Logic would argue that it does not follow that more girls will be having sex when they're 12. Nor, from pure reason, could one prove that teen pregnancies will go up, because neither of those things has to happen.
Any bets on whether they will?
But, hey, at least the reported crime rate is bound to go down and fewer Sri Lankan males will be going to jail for having sex with 13 year olds.
Posted by: Nick on 09.19.05 @ 08:25 AM CST [Link] [38 Comments]
A Hurricane of Spending
There are three reasons to be a fiscal conservative, although most political discussion centers on only two because the third is the most esoteric and likely least popular. Except for class warriors, no one really wants to argue for high taxes, so cutting taxes is the easy sell. And that's the one our current "conservative" President has no problem getting behind.
Then there's the matter of paying one's bills and trying to balance the budget. Against the intrinsic sense of it's better to live within our means, however, we have decades of experience demonstrating that paying the piper needn't occur within a human lifetime--so why worry. This second leg of the fiscal sensibility stool, therefore, has weakened, especially because of the track record of the last three Republican presidents--all of whom preferred tax cuts to balanced budgets. Still, at least President Bush gives lip service to a belief in reconciling spending with revenues. Someday.
Yet arguably the most important of the three legs of fiscal conservatism is the intellectual, philosophical impetus to keep government expenditures small: Government does not just increase its power by taxing; government increases its power by spending. It seems to me this latter concept is totally absent from the thought processes of today's Republican leaders, especially the President. Or if it is not absent, then being the party with almost absolute power has corrupted Republicans almost absolutely. Witness Tom DeLay's praise of the "perfectability" of government after a dozen years of Republican congressional rule.
The rising flood waters of government spending seep in, exploiting every opening or weak spot in individual liberty--and personal character--so that greater and greater capacity is vested in the government and less and less in the individual. What is the federal government's favorite way of going around constitutional limitations on its power? By cutting off addictive money it first "gives" to the states in the best imitation of a heroin dealer. Medicare shows how a big government budget can lead to de facto tail-wagging-dog industries.
Now comes the compassionate conservative response to Hurricane Katrina:
It's only been 10 days since reconstruction funds were voted out of Congress, but there are already stories of misspending. For example, the Louis Vuitton store reported selling two monographed luxury handbags for $800 each, both paid for by women with FEMA's $2,000 emergency disaster relief debit cards.
Rapacious trial lawyers are already on the hunt rounding up Katrina's victims to unleash a barrage of multimillion dollar lawsuits. Now they have been empowered by Congress to finance these lawsuits against taxpayers . . . with taxpayer dollars.
The government has just allocated $250 million for "counseling and legal services." After 9/11, the federal government authorized tens of millions of dollars for "counseling" to traumatized families of the victims. A Republican Study Committee audit discovered that millions went for "peace" and "diversity" workshops, a "yearlong celebration of trees, gardens and other healing places," theater workshops, anger-management classes and multiculturalism programs to discuss "who we are and why we are here." (Isn't that what churches are for?)
Politicians from seemingly every congressional district appear to be elbowing their way to the orgy table for a slice of this $200-billion pie. At last count, 12 governors declared their states emergency disaster areas, and thus eligible for federal aid. Iowa, Michigan and Utah, for example, states nowhere near the Hurricane, are lining up for disaster relief funds.
Conspicuously missing from the post-Katrina spending debate is a question for some brave soul in Congress to ask, What is the appropriate and constitutional role here for the federal government? Before the New Deal taught us that the federal government is the solution to every malady, most congresses and presidents would have concluded that the federal government's role was minimal. One of our greatest presidents, Democrat Grover Cleveland, vetoed an appropriation for drought victims because there was no constitutional authority to spend for such purposes. Today he would be ridiculed by Ted Kennedy as "incompassionate."
We all want to see New Orleans rebuilt, but it does not follow that this requires more than $100 billion in federal aid. Chicago was burned to the ground in 1871; San Francisco was leveled by an earthquake in 1906; and in 1900 Galveston, Texas, was razed by a hurricane even more ferocious than Katrina. In each instance, these proud cities were rebuilt rapidly and to even greater glory--with hardly any federal money.
Alas, in the world of compassionate conservatism, the quaint notion of limited federal power has fallen to the wayside in favor of an ethic that has Uncle Sam as first, second and third responder to crisis. FEMA, despite its woeful performance, will grow in size and stature. So will the welfare state. Welcome to the new New Dealism of the GOP.
It seems once more that the only people who worry about the size of government--and hence its power--are those not riding on the beast's back.
Posted by: Nick on 09.19.05 @ 06:13 AM CST [Link] [61 Comments]
