Today's Truth

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone."

Frederic Bastiat - (1801-1850)

French political economist, classical liberal theorist, statesman, and author.

Source: The Law, (1850)

Teaching Gun Safety to Children

My friends, I was first taught gun safety at school when learning to shoot rifles for the cadets. I was 14 years old at the time.

However, it seems it's never to early to start.

Congratulations to the National Rifle Association for this socially responsible stance.

Today's Truth

"Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good."

Daniel Patrick Moynihan - (1927-2003)

Four term Democratic Party Senator for New York, United States Ambassador to the United Nations and India, member of four successive Presidential administrations from Kennedy to Ford and sociologist.

Source: New York Post, 14 May 1969

PETA loonies at it again

My friends, have these people got no sense of proportion, no decency, in fact no brains at all?

According to USA Today their latest trick is to get supporters to dress in full Ku Klux Klan garb to picket the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at New York's Madison Square Garden. As the paper reports:

Their goal, according to a post on the PETA website, was to draw a parallel between the KKK and the American Kennel Club. "Obviously it's an uncomfortable comparison," PETA spokesman Michael McGraw told the Associated Press.

But the AKC is trying to create a "master race" when it comes to pure-bred dogs, he added. "It's a very apt comparison."

Way to go PETA! Promote your pro-animal agenda by alienating millions of people who remember the true crimes of the KKK with cheap campaigning stunts and demeaning comparisons. How can it go wrong?

What next, comparing chicken farming to the Nazi Holocaust?

Today's Truth

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path."

Ronald Wilson Reagan - (1911–2004)

Hollywood star, President of the Screen Actors Guild, 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975) and 40th President of the United States (1981–1989)

Source: A Time for Choosing (a.k.a. The Speech), 1964

Dawkins Rap - Beware the Believers

My friends, I'm not convinced he (or his adherents) are over-burdened with a sense of humour, but surely even Richard Dawkins' lot must find this funny?

Islamist extremists call for Australian Forest Fire Jihad

My friends, there is an interesting piece from the Australian news source, The Age, back in September 2008.

According to them the Al-Ikhlas Islamic Network has been urging Muslims to deliberately light bushfires as a weapon of terror, arguing that lighting fires is an effective form of terrorism justified in Islamic law under the "eye for an eye" doctrine.

The idea for a Forest Fire Jihad has been attributed to imprisoned Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Al-Suri who urged terrorists to use sulphuric acid and petrol to start forest fires. Given the current events in Victoria it is worth considering the following passage:

The posting - which instructs jihadis to remember "forest jihad" in summer months - says fires cause economic damage and pollution, tie up security agencies and can take months to extinguish so that "this terror will haunt them for an extended period of time".

"Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organisation were to claim responsibility for the forest fires," the website says. "You can hardly begin to imagine the level of fear that would take hold of people in the United States, in Europe, in Russia and in Australia."

Chilling stuff...

Today's Truth

"The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be "undemocratic". Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. And what we must realise is that "democracy" in the diabolical sense (I'm as good as you...) is the finest instrument we could possibly have for extirpating political democracies from the face of the earth."

C.S. Lewis - (1898-1963)
British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist.

Source: The Screwtape Letters, 1942