About that "Ground Zero Mosque"

The debate rages over the planned Islamic Center and mosque "at Ground Zero". I put that bit in quotes simply because the actual location - 45 Park Place - is a couple of blocks up Broadway from the site of the former World Trade Center. So it's not actually at Ground Zero.

Opponents say it's "insensitive" to permit construction of the center, and maybe they're right. But who cares? Since when is sensitivity a prerequisite for legal use of property? I'm a believer in property rights, and if the present owners of 45 Park Place wish to build an Islamic Center there, that's their right.

Some opponents also say this is a giant "fuck you" from New York's Muslim community to America, and maybe they're right, too. But so-called conservatives who ranted - correctly - about the Supreme Court's Kelo decision then turn around and say they want eminent domain invoked to prevent construction of this building are being hypocritical in the extreme.

We're not at war with Islam, the religion. We're at war with Islamism, the political-military movement. I know that to many (both Muslim and "infidel") the two are inseparable, but unless we're willing to discard the notion of religious freedom, we should just shut up about this.

Noted lefty truther demonstrates economic skillz

The Daily Caller provides Exhibit 839 in the case against putting progressives in charge of the US economy.

...former White House “green jobs” adviser Anthony Van Jones said it was time to stop worrying about budget deficits and pressure Washington to take more money from American businesses to fund larger social and infrastructure projects.

“This is a rich country. We have plenty of money, and if you don’t believe me, ask Haliburton,” Jones told a group of progressive bloggers and activists at the Netroots Nation convention Friday. “There’s plenty of money out there; don’t fall into the trap of this whole deficit argument.”

“The only question is how to spend it,” he added.

American corporations currently face the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world, according to the Tax Foundation.

What Jones and his fellow travelers on the Left completely fail to grasp is that businesses don't pay taxes, they collect taxes. From you and me in the form of higher prices.

This is why progressives should never, ever be in control of government.

Three men, three pictures

Posted without further comment:

Via e-mail from my friend AB.

Green Lies And Ham

I got this via e-mail from my buddy AB (who furnishes me with an endless stream of blog fodder, if I only spent more time blogging). Author, unfortunately, unknown.

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks,

or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,

I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like this speaker, Nan ,

I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,

I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like your smug replies,

when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.

I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!

Another media fabrication

The howler monkeys in the media have done it again. Remember when Toyota cars by the score were suddenly accelerating on their own and it was all you heard about earlier this year? The media piled on, and eventually Congress hauled Toyota executives in for the rubber hose treatment.

Turns out, there was nothing at all wrong with Toyota's cars:

“There are a variety of causes -- pedal entrapment, sticky pedal, other foreign objects in the car” and “pedal misapplication,” Michels said yesterday in a telephone interview. Asked how many crashes were linked to pushing the accelerator when motorists thought they were pushing the brake pedal, he said, “virtually all.”

A nearly identical thing happened to Audi in the 1980s, and it was years before Audi successfully reentered the American market. From a 1990 Manhattan Institute piece:

The Audi story is by now, dismally familiar. "Sudden acceleration" accidents occurred when the transmission was shifted out of "park." The driver always insisted he was standing on the brake, but after the crash the brakes always worked perfectly. A disproportionate number of accidents involved drivers new to the vehicle. When an idiotproof shift was installed so that a driver could not shift out of park if his foot was on the accelerator, reports of sudden acceleration plummeted.

But a story to the effect that cars accelerate when drivers step on the accelerator doesn't boost television ratings or jury verdicts. And driver error is understandably hard to accept for a mother whose errant foot killed her sixyearold son. So with the help of such mothers, CAS and CBS knitted together a tissue of conjecture, insinuation and calumny. The car's cruise control was at fault. Or maybe the electronic idle. Or perhaps the transmission.

"60 Minutes," in one of journalism's most shameful hours, gave air time in November 1986 to a selfstyled expert who drilled a hole in an Audi transmission and pumped in air at high pressure. Viewers didn't see the drill or the pump—just the doctored car blasting off like a rocket.

How much did this media fabrication, aided and abetted by the most anti-business American government in history, cost Toyota?