(New Haven) Yale President Richard Levin poses proudly with the new Dean of the Department of Multi-Cultural Studies. "He brings a vast wealth of experience to this position and will be a great asset to help everyone at Yale understand his culture and it’s place in the world and here at Yale in particular", Dr. Levin explained. "Welcome to Yale!"
UPDATE: Thank you to Penraker for the link. Welcome visitors to Blue Crab Boulevard. Please take a look around while you’re here.
Jane Galt asks a question about guest worker programs. She also points out that European guest worker programs haven’t exactly been a roaring success. So is the guest worker program just political cover?
Remember this photo? It will forever be known as the "Last Helicopter to Leave Saigon"; it wasn’t. People think it was taken at the US Embassy in Saigon; it wasn’t *. But the symbolism of this picture is so powerful that it will always be thought of that way. It’s one of the most searing, no, damning, photos of Vietnam. America abandoning it’s allies.
It’s a picture that has haunted us over and over again in the years since, Americans withdrawing in their helicopters and leaving allies behind. In today’s Opinion Journal, Amir Taheri has an article called The Last Helicopter. It’s a must read.
"To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the corpses of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein’s generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton’s helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd".
This then is the Iranian strategy - wait us out until we lose our stomach to confront the evil of radical Islam. Read the whole thing and hope Taheri is right. Hope that this time America is not the one on the last helicopter. This time let it be those who would destroy us taking that flight.
* The photo was taken by Hubert Van Es and actually shows the roof of an apartment building in Downtown Saigon where CIA personnel were housed. It was not the last helicopter to leave Saigon, just one of the ones used in a last minute evacuation. It was also the only helicopter to land on that particular roof that day. The actual last departure was several hours later.
H/T LGF for the link to this.
According to this article, the real root cause of the ILLEGAL immigration problem is that the US isn’t giving Mexico enough aid.
Now this is according to Reuters, a media outlet that loves to blame the US for - well - everything, so that explains quite a lot. Still the article quotes Mexico’s president Fox, a couple of Mexican academics and another college type from the American University in Washington. They all conclude that until the income gap closes, Mexicans will come here. And of course the US should help fix the income gap by sending gobs of cash south.
So where is the Mexican government? Why don’t they have a role here? Oh wait, they do have a role! They want to set US immigration policy!
Seriously, I think the article unwittingly does show the true root cause. Not the income gap, but rather the complete and utter abdication of responsibility for their own people by the Mexican government.
Due to my education, I have a pretty hefty amount of training in mathematics, statistics and even in design of experiments - a subject that also covers polls and questionnaires. This is one of the reasons I am so disgusted with politicians misusing polls to craft policy. Many polling questions today are poorly written, overly broad and fall too easily into the practice of ‘push-polling’. Don’t even get me started on skewed samples.
Accordingly, I tend not to pay attention to the polls themselves but rather to trends in a spectrum of polls. While not perfect, it at least keeps me from having to replace monitors. So the reports that a whole bunch of polls show a solid majority favor a crackdown on ILLEGAL immigration is worthy of note. (Note I am stressing illegal. Too many advocates immediately try to paint any call for reform as "anti-immigrant". There is a tremendous difference between legal and illegal immigration. One is not a racist or a xenophobe for calling for control of an illegal activity.)
Which brings me to the point in this post. After days of gushing about the demonstrations, painting them in the most favorable light and actively downplaying the huge numbers of Mexican flags the demonstrators carried, the MSM has been forced to acknowledge that Americans are not happy about all this. But they can’t help themselves, they still have to try to get the message across that if you’re against ILLEGAL immigration there is something wrong with you.To wit:
"The reasons for Americans’ growing concerns are varied, experts said, but they are driven in part by growing fears of terrorism and a diminishing tolerance for things foreign".
Nowhere in the article are either of those assertions backed up by a quote from a real, live expert. Nowhere. Just the reporters insinuation that you’re a cowardly xenophobe if you don’t like hundreds of thousands of criminals demanding political rights. Make no mistake, people who are in this country illegally are already criminals. The House bill doesn’t turn them into criminals. Their own actions in coming across the borders illegally made them criminals.
As I have stated before, the demonstrations will backfire on a mammoth scale.
A Justice of the Supreme Court seldom expresses himself in a letter to the editor. Justice Scalia, however has done so before. He just sent another letter, this time to the Boston Herald. In it he takes just a wee bit of exception to the nasty hit piece they did the other day accusing him of making an obscene gesture.
“Your reporter, an up-and-coming ‘gotcha’ star named Laurel J. Sweet, asked me (o-so-sweetly) what I said to those people. . .,” Scalia wrote to Executive Editor Kenneth A. Chandler. “I responded, jocularly, with a gesture that consisted of fanning the fingers of my right hand under my chin. Seeing that she did not understand, I said, ‘That’s Sicilian,’ and explained its meaning.”
I like that: "up-and-coming ‘gotcha star". That about sums it up, too. The other funny thing is the original article expalined that Scalia was an "Italian jurist". Scalia corrected them and told them he was an American jurist.
H/T Betsy Newmark for the follow-up.
UPDATE: Volokh has the full text of the letter.
…and ready to party. That’s the name of a Bob and Tom song that I used to hear a lot. I don’t have any first hand experience since I never dated one.
Well, in Germany this may be more than likely to be true. A church-funded program is retraining prostitutes to be nurses for the elderly or as telemarketers.
"After years of prostitution, they know how to listen, look after people and are savvy in selling over the phone," says project co-ordinator Gisela Zohren.
It seems fees for prostitution have dropped recently to rock-bottom and prostitutes over the age of thirty are finding it hard to make a living. Hence the new initiative to retrain the working girls to help with the elderly.
No word yet on how long the waiting list of German men trying to get one of these ladies to nurse them is. I know Uncle Jimmy would LOVE a nurse wth those kinds of credentials…….
Well, between writing about the South African dominatrix and this item from Betsy Newmark, it was inevitable that Blue Crab Boulevard would give in to temptation. We tried very hard to fight the compulsion, but just couldn’t help ourselves.
We sincerely apologize for any damage to your mind’s eye.
Hillary ‘08 - If You Know What’s Good For You.
Police in the Netherlands have arrested three drunk drivers, all driving the same car. No, they weren’t all behind the wheel at the same time, that would be impossible. First, a man was caught at a routine traffic control stop. When he failed the breathalyser, his passenger drove off. Unfortunately, the passenger also failed his test. A couple hours later the police spotted the same car with yet another driver. He, too, was not fit to be behind the wheel.
The police seized the car and impounded it.
And it’s about time, too. The car is obviously promoting drunk driving.
Home
Marianne Ellis and her husband are leaving the vicarage they had been leasing from a South African church. It seems the church elders were somewhat unhappy with her chosen profession. Ellis is a dominatrix who used part of the vicarage as her - er - playroom. She insists that she only made businessmen dress in women’s clothing and whipped them, she never provided sexual services. Nonetheless, the church was taking her to court to evict her. Tired of the fight, she dropped the matter and told the church elders to shove it.
We here at Blue Crab Boulevard don’t particularly care what floats anyone’s boat. Being whipped while dressing as a woman isn’t an attractive option personally, but hey, live and let live. We are however somewhat mystified at why clients visited Ellis. Bravely wading into the Internet jungle, your intrepid correspondent has retrieved an article from a South African newspaper which features a photo of Ms. Ellis, proudly posing with one of the tools of her trade, a cat-o-nine tails. Incidently, Ms. Ellis goes by the professional name of "The Duchess".
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ms. Ellis looks somewhat less like a dominatrix and more like your average frumpy housewife. Not that there’s anything wrong with frumpiness. But dressing up to get whipped by someone who looks like your Aunt Sally is even less attractive as an option……
Excuse me, I have to go take a shower.
Afghan lawmakers have demanded that Abdul Rahman, the Afghan man charged with converting to Christianity, not be allowed to leave the country. While they have debated the issue and say they have sent a letter to the Interior Ministry, they stopped short of taking a formal vote on the matter. Italy yesterday granted Mr. Rahman asylum.
Rahman is still in an undisclosed location.
All we can do is hope the lawmakers are indulging in what politicians are so good at - covering their butts by making an empty gesture.
Afghanistan has a long way to go to get shut of the influence of the hate-filled Taliban.
Somehow it seems fitting to parody Harry Belafonti's song in this context.
The invaluable Penraker has launch the latest in a series of electronic RPGs at the outright hypocrisy that is so evident at Yale today. Yale is so tolerant and forgiving of the former Taliban propaganda minister, saying he was so very young (cue Cat "Kill Rushdie" Stevens). It is so nice that they are so very open minded and understanding, isn't it? Hell, Hashemi doesn't even have to apologize for his actions, the poor, misguided youth. Yale shall make room for him and give him a fine, Western education!
Unless you are guilty of using the word "nigs" in a personal notebook when you were seventeen years old. Then the full weight and fury of the student body shall be unleashed upon you. It doesn't matter if you apologize over and over again, either.
Seventeen year-old Kiwi Camara uses the word "nigs" to refer to African Americans as a prodigal Harvard law student. He later apologizes, and denies that he harbors ill feelings towards African Americans. Several years later, editors at the Yale Law Journal, unaware of his controversial past, offer to publish an article he wrote in a symposium issue, and later invite him to speak at the relevant symposium. When the "community" discovers Camara's past, all hell breaks loose at Yale, with outraged students arguing that a moral reprobate like Camara should not be allowed to publish in the hallowed Journal, much less speak in Yale's hallowed halls. Camara apologizes again, unequivocally. (See previous VC coverage by Eugene here.) Nevertheless, mass meetings, protests, etc. ensue, culminating last Friday when 1/3 of the symposium audience walked out on Camara's talk.
Stunning, isn't it?
(Note: I was not able to trackback to Penraker, but I did put one in for Volokh)
Foto Phun, Humor | Gaius Wednesday, 29 March , 2006 | 
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