Freedom Line Blog

Nobel laureate in literature – and Nigerian democracy advocate – Wole Soyinka is angry that his country was put on the terrorism watch list in the wake of his countryman’s attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009.  The finger of blame, he argues, shouldn’t be pointed at Nigeria, but at England.

The man did not get radicalized in Nigeria. It happened in England, where he went to university.

“England is a cesspit. England is the breeding ground of fundamentalist Muslims. Its social logic is to allow all religions to preach openly. But this is illogic, because none of the other religions preach apocalyptic violence. And yet England allows it. Remember, that country was the breeding ground for communism, too. Karl Marx did all his work in libraries there.”

Why is Britain the way it is? “This is part of the character of Great Britain,” Mr. Soyinka declares. “Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.” And so it is, he says, that Britain lets everyone preach whatever they want: It confirms a self-image of greatness.

Later on, Soyinka identifies the cause of the present religious war of all against all: the Ayatollah Khomeini.  Why?  Because the fatwa against Salman Rushdie escalated the range of acceptable physical aggression within certain spheres of the Muslim world.  That heightened acceptable aggression eventually trickled down to other radical Muslim groups, sanctioning terrorism and murder for groups like Al Qaeda.

Luckily, Soyinka thinks radical Islam won’t take root in America because Muslims have gone mainstream through the work of the Nation of Islam.  I guess it’s all relative.

H/T: Daily Beast

Virginia is now one of many states pushing through a legislative response to complete federal control of health care.  Today, 23 Virginia Senators voted to exempt the Commonwealth from ObamaCare’s individual health insurance mandate.  Five Democrats joined all 18 Republicans to enact the measure in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

If President Obama’s health care bill does come back to life in the U.S. Congress, it appears that more states will follow Virginia’s lead to fight ObamaCare locally.

Unfortunately, we all know a couple where at least one of the partners lashes out at others instead of manfully (or womanly) dealing with the relationship’s problems. For people like this, holidays like Valentine’s Day or anniversaries are no respite from the tension. If anything, they heighten it.

So it can be with nations. This morning brings news of a scheduled widening of the rift between Iran’s government and its people. Opposition leaders plan to stage massive protests on February 11th – the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that installed the current regime. The executions of two men accused of stoking earlier street protests were the straws that broke the camel’s back. In response, the ruling elite’s mouthpiece, er, president, said that on the same day the government would deliver a harsh blow to “global arrogance.”

Who are these “global arrogant”? Certainly not Barack Obama’s America, which has taken a decidedly hands-off approach to the internal affairs of its equal-in-worth-if-not-in-Security-Council-member-prestige UN partner. Also off the offender list must be China and Russia, two of the Iranian government’s biggest patrons.

No, it sounds like the mullahs who run the country are looking for a distraction from dealing with the widespread disgust of the people it claims to repress – I mean, represent. If anything, the harsh blow hurtling its way towards Israel, America, the West, etc. is the best confirmation that the people who run Iran are desperately trying to avoid losing power. But as bad relationships attest, failure to change in time almost always leads to being left behind.

If it isn’t careful, Iran’s government could bring a harsh rebuke not only from the globally arrogant, but also from its own people. This is one way to start a civil war.

Talk about “inconvenient truths.”

The global warming cacophony has become even more dissonant in recent months, as global temperature data continues to confirm a decade-long temperature decline since 1998.  How could this happen, considering substantial increases in carbon output as China and India have rapidly industrialized, and the United States economy witnessed a decade of unprecedented growth?  On top of that, the “Climategate” scandal in recent months exposed the rotten infrastructure of lies, pettiness and data manipulation that constitutes the global warming community.

Now, along comes an unintentionally amusing report that climatologists are “puzzled” that the planet’s stratospheric cycles may have cooled the globe despite their claims that humans control our climate.

As reported by Gautam Naik of The Wall Street Journal, “climatologists have puzzled” over global cooling over the past decade, and “new research suggests that lower levels of water vapor in the stratosphere may partly explain the anomaly.” The report proceeds to discuss a Science magazine study showing that “concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere has dropped about 10% in the past decade, triggered by unexplained cooler temperatures at certain high altitudes above the tropics.”

Further, “the study concludes that in the last decade the decline in water vapor slowed the rate of rising temperatures by about 25%, thus partly negating the heat-trapping effect of increasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.”

In other words, natural and unpredictable global cycles and solar activity far beyond human control overwhelm the alleged effects of human activity on the planet.

The only people “puzzled” by this are the global warming zealots who are at long last watching their claims to vanity evaporate in the face of reality.

According to The Hill newspaper, Democrats reached a tentative compromise on health care just days before Massachusetts elected Scott Brown.  Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) stated that an agreement was reached on January 15. 

Of course, it is an indictment of this Administration’s transparency pledge that you’re reading about this news in February and didn’t watch the discussions live on C-SPAN.  Senator Harkin’s revelation underscores just how deceptive the White House was in negotiating the future of health care behind closed doors and how important Scott Brown’s victory was in defeating ObamaCare.

A few million Americans in Massachusetts made their voices heard loud and clear, but judging from last week’s State of the Union Address, the White House is still not listening.

Today, the White House officially released its Budget for Fiscal Year 2011.  It is $3.8 trillion and consumes four large volumes.  What does it say about fiscal responsibility when your budget is thousands of pages and costs $236?

After a $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009, the White House projects a larger $1.56 trillion gap in this fiscal year.  To “trim” the massive sinkhole of red ink, the Administration proposes raising income taxes (though President Obama bragged about his tax record during his State of the Union Address) and energy taxes to reach a “manageable” $1.27 trillion shortfall next year.

Click here for the Office of Management and Budget website to review the budget, historical tables and analytical perspectives.

Politico – Five Years, $5.08 Trillion in Debt
The Hill – White House Still Wants New York Terror Trials
Washington Examiner – Move Terrorist Trials Back to Military Courts
WSJ Editorial – Deficit Lip Service

Washington Times – Troubling Democratic Tremors
National Review Online – Rigging the Numbers on Terror Trials
Red State – SOTU from an Energy Perspective
Washington Post – Primaries in Illinois Turn Nasty

Federal Debt: $12.351 trillion