Just disgusting:

An Israeli cargo ship arriving in Oakland today was forced to sit idle and not offload its containers when longshoremen joined forces with a coalition of communist and Islamist groups who picketed the port in protest against the recent violent incident off the coast of Gaza.

The ship, owned by Zim Lines, was not carrying any controversial cargo, nor is Zim involved in politics in any way; it was targeted simply because the shipping company is based in Israel.

The Jew-hatred of the left grows apace – anything which can be done to make life miserable for Jews is being done and will continue to be done.

Now comes the time for everyone on the left to choose: do you wish to be party to the New Holocaust, advocated by the Islamo-fascists, or will you have no part in it? Pick a side, and let us know where you stand.

The good news just keeps rolling in, doesn’t it? From the Financial Times:

The US remained the world’s biggest manufacturing nation by output last year, but is poised to relinquish this slot in 2011 to China – thus ending a 110-year run as the number one country in factory production.

This is an outright disaster and proof that our economic system is fundamentally flawed. We have a massive government, special privileges for some companies which work out as restraint of trade for small and start-up firms, a burdensome tax and regulatory climate which makes it easier for corporate pinheads to move factories to China rather than keeping them here. And it all adds up to a system which makes life hard for the working poor and middle class.

The very rich and the very poor get on ok with this – only in America are the non-working poor overweight, driving cars and watching cable TV. Meanwhile, the super rich are still out there buying luxury goods at a fast pace while regular retailers face bankruptcy.

Revolution, my friends – it is the only way. We must overturn this bastard combine of corporatism and socialism and build an economy fit for regular men and women to work in. November will likely prove a good first step in this, but keep in mind that it is just a first step – if we are not relentless post-November, then our own GOP will slip back in to the bad, old ways.

Never let up – the fight is just beginning and it will take a generation to complete.

Have at it, boys and girls – I’m afraid I failed you a bit and just couldn’t get it together in time to have something good for Sunday morning.

Lots to talk about though – possible Dow of 1,000; the hole still ain’t plugged; Obama is making us worse than France; what to do when confronted with a German biker gang…

Lots of things to talk about…

Man up:

The greatest gift a father can give his family is to be a man; and not just any man, but a man after God’s own heart. This is the message that Fr. Larry Richards has been taking to men’s conferences and retreats around the country for a very long time.

His new book, “Be a Man!” goes into great detail on what that means as a challenge to men who live in a culture that is working hard to remove their masculinity.

“Men are created to be protectors, supporters and providers,” Fr. Richards remarked. “We are, by definition, givers. So, the way men relate to God, then, is different from a woman, they are action oriented. I challenge men to give themselves to a higher cause.”…

There is a war against manliness in our modern society. Think about this – in our sublime Declaration of Independence, it is noted that we resisted royal demands with “manly firmness”. Can you imagine the heart ache which would ensue if an American politician in 2010 repeated that phrase? If he were to say, for instance, that we must confront our enemies around the globe with “manly firmness”? There would be an explosion of outrage!

But we do need a bit of that. Being a man does not mean being violent; but it does entail the willingness to use violence, at extreme need. It doesn’t mean being arrogant; but it does mean making an actual decision. It doesn’t mean being top dog but, rather, being top servant – a servant who goes straight to the heart of the problem and does what is right, regardless of consequences.

Think about this – if the men who are the father’s of our rising generation refuse to do the right thing, then how will that generation even know what the right thing is? A great deal of our modern problems stem from the fact that ever increasing numbers of youngsters have not had a man in their life – they might have had someone they knew of as “dad”, but all too often he doesn’t play his role. A recovery of our sanity will require that men recover their masculinity – and we’d best get at it, before it gets too late.

Its getting a bit bad over there:

…California’s fiscal hole is now so large that the state would have to liberate 168,000 prison inmates and permanently shutter 240 university and community college campuses to balance its budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Think of California as Greece on the Pacific: bankrupt and desperately needing a bailout.

Except that a bail out just won’t do the trick. It would stave off complete collapse, but only for a little while and then only ensure that the final collapse is worse than ever.

What must California do? Cut the budget until it is balanced. There is no other way out – heck, its the only way California will be able to roll over its existing debt at anything like an acceptable interest rate.

Liberalism has crushed the life out of California – and now budget cuts are necessary to crush the life out of California liberalism. Only then can California breath again, and start to recover.

From CBS News:

…a senior administration official tells CBS News that the federal government will indeed formally challenge the law when Justice Department lawyers are finished building the case. The official said Justice is still working on building the case.

This is would be an egregious and unwarranted interference of a sovereign State. And to double the bad news, its all being done because the Obama Administration refuses to enforce US border security laws – rather than enforce the laws, Obama is preferring to make political hay over a State attempting to protect the liberty, lives and property of its citizens!

It is most emphatically not a violation of the United States Constitution for a State to inquire in to the residency status of persons detained in the course of normal law enforcement activities. If we allow this Obama Administration action to go forward we will be allowing the federal government to entirely usurp the powers reserved for the States and the people. Obama is, perhaps, just grand standing – but the effect of such an action would be the overthrow of the United States constitutional order.

When this case comes down we, the people, must stand with Arizona – in defense of the American system of government against an out of control federal government.

UPDATE: 56% oppose this Administration effort.

Michael Yon over on Facebook links to two must-read articles about Afghanistan. One is an analysis piece for the Associated Press, the other an article in Foreign Policy dealing with the specific inability of the British army to gain control, and the transfer of a good part of the fight to the military. Both pieces are sobering and call for a review of our effort in Afghanistan.

Michael Yon has made it clear that he doesn’t think General McChrystal’s strategy is working – that while our troops and allies are doing some good work, the basic strategy of trying to provide security first and attacking the Taliban second is not bearing fruit. Yon considers his exclusion from Afghanistan likely due to his criticism of the effort – and asserts that such actions by the authorities betray their own concerns about the success of the mission (that they are, in effect, trying to hide the truth of the matter).

I can’t render any hard and fast judgment on that though Yon has my respect for the honesty and courage of his reporting since the entire War on Terrorism began. When he says something, it must not be dismissed out of hand – there’s something to it. The distinct impression I get is that our troops – as usual – are behaving magnificently – doing all we ask of them and as much as soldiers have ever accomplished. But war isn’t just fighting – it is politics by other means, and the concern is that on the political side, we’ve set ourselves up for defeat no matter what our troops do.

My view is that the flaw stems from the fact that President Obama, in announcing the surge to Afghanistan, pledged less force than the military apparently asked for and what might prove quite fatal for the whole enterprise, he pledged to start drawing down our forces in 2011. He announced when the war would end – and thus provided the Taliban a time line for when they will be able to start advancing, again. For the Taliban, it has been a matter of just enduring until we start to leave.

For the Afghan people, the fact that we have not pledged to stay for as long as it takes puts them in a difficult position: they don’t support the Taliban, but they also know just how savage the Taliban will be with those who opposed them. As we’re not pledged to protect the Afghan people indefinitely, it becomes for them a calculation: will the Taliban be defeated before America leaves? One can only assume that events on the ground have convinced the Afghan people to, at best, sit on the fence – but fence-sitting on their part is a strategic defeat for us; a political defeat which does not appear amenable to a military fix.

It must be kept in mind that our victory in Iraq’s Anbar province was predicated upon convincing the Iraqi people that we would not leave until the job was done. The actual start of our victory somewhat predated the surge and was well under way by the time we maxed out our forces in Iraq. President Bush was convincing on this – and knowing we wouldn’t abandon them as we had in 1991, the people of Iraq decided to jump off the fence and help us route the terrorists. Obama’s decision about Afghanistan was just about the worst he could have taken – even ordering an immediate withdrawal in 2009 would not have been as bad as ordering a half-effort with the end date pre-marked on the package.

So, what do we do? The only way to retrieve the situation – with or without a command shake up, which may be necessary – is for Obama to clearly and forthrightly state that given the changed circumstances, the 2011 draw down date is suspended indefinitely and we’ll fight on in Afghanistan as long as it takes for victory. That plus a possible command change – with possible changes in tactics on the ground – would open up the prospect of getting the Afghan people enthusiastically on our side, thus allowing us the real power to defeat the Taliban for good.

It is highly questionable if Obama can do this – or would be willing to do it, supposing he felt strong enough with his base to drag them kicking and screaming in to an enhanced effort in Afghanistan. Obama is already a much diminished figure on the left – calling for longer and bloodier war is not the way to refurbish a tarnished image. But this is part of the job of being President – not always thinking of the political calculus, but of doing what is best for the nation as a whole.

Make no mistake about if, if our effort in Afghanistan ends in anything other than a semblance of pro-American government in Kabul, then disaster would follow. The terrorists would be emboldened not just in Afghanistan, but around the world. The immediate effect would be stepped up attacks around the world and in the United States – the long term effect would be an unwillingness of more moderate Moslems to work with us. No one wants to back the side which will cut and run, leaving its allies to be beheaded by victorious Islamists.

We’ll now see if Obama has the stuff in him of an American President. The stakes are high, victory or defeat hangs in the balance. The decision is entirely President Obama’s – no one can make it for him, and no one can hide the consequences of his action or inaction.

Excellent set of short videos exploding the myth of overpopulation:

So, the TEA Party is a bunch of fiscal conservative, social libertarians who can’t get along with social conservatives? Think again – from Inside Catholic:

…True, there are many conservatives who believe that the most pressing moral issues of our day — such as abortion, marriage, and education — must be addressed at the federal level. I used to be one of them. Libertarian constitutionalists like Paul, however, have long argued that these matters are best addressed by state and local governments. It is a subsidiarist position aimed at restoring the proper balance between local and national rights and duties, while the federal government is restricted by the Constitution. Thus the practical aim of the pro-life movement coincides with what ought to be the philosophical aim of the Tea Party: to overturn Roe v. Wade as an unconstitutional decision and return the legislation of abortion to the states.

The same may be said for any number of similar issues. Consider, for instance, the debacle of Proposition 8 in California, which voters approved by a large majority in order to ban same-sex marriage. The California courts moved promptly to strike down the will of the people. It seems highly unlikely that principled libertarians in the Tea Party movement would reject the outcome of a legitimate democratic process and opt instead for fiat rule from the bench…

Those of you unfamiliar with Catholic social teaching might be unfamiliar with the term “subsidiarist” – it comes from “subsidiarity” which is a core, Catholic belief about how society should be governed. As staunch as we are about traditional marriage, a adamant as we are on the subject of abortion, as insistent as we are about school choice, the bottom line for our social, economic and political belief is that power should reside as far down the ladder as possible. We believe that it should “subside” first with the individual, second with the family, third with the local community, fourth with the several States, and only dead last with the federal government.

Is there a libertarian who is going to insist upon imposing gay marriage by judicial fiat? Not at all – in fact, to demand a judicial imposition of anything except enforcement of voluntary contracts is pretty much out of bounds for any libertarian. And no social conservative in his right mind is going to demand federal action to, say, clean up the immorality of a place like San Francisco. We know our job is to convert such pagan strongholds – and then allow the growing wisdom of the local people re-adjust law and custom in accordance with truth.

While the ultimate desired outcome between libertarians and social conservatives might, at times, be quite different, the methods of obtaining the outcomes are the same: individual liberty and strictly limited, constitutional government. This is why I said some time ago that I would, indeed, back a libertarian advocate of gay marriage against any statist, liberal Democrat in a liberal district – my desire is to preserve and extend freedom because in such an arena I am confident that Truth will eventually rule. A libertarian who disagrees with me will give me my chance (and I will be ok with my libertarian friend/opponent continuing to argue against my view in the public square). On the other hand, a liberal-fascist merely wants to permanently shut me down.

The TEA Party is made up of stalwart, American patriots – men and women who claim their proper descent from Washington, Jefferson and Adams. Not by blood, but by spirit and learning they have become the children of our Revolutionary forefathers. Just like those forefathers, there will be the endless debate about the best means to the end – but no argument that the end worked for is liberty. Try as they might to split the forces of Revolution, the left simply cannot convince the broad majority that social conservatives and libertarians should be enemies – we know allies when we see them, and we know from the start that allies don’t necessarily agree all the time.

Where is the bottom?

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21…

This is now several days of polling at Rasmussen post-speech. It looks like that was more of a disaster than I initially suspected. I honestly expected a bounce for him on it – you know, the old “rally ’round the flag” stuff you get whenever a President concentrates on an issue.

Not only no bounce, it looks like what he said made matters worse!

Looks like Carter has been redeemed – he’s no longer going to be rated our worst President.