Culture War Dispatches

from a Progressive People's Republic

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Rep. Capuano: Further needed health care reforms

Michael Capuano: "It is my hope that this landmark legislation will...serve as a starting point for further needed reforms."

Read full blog on American Thinker

Run for your life!

Charles Phillips of Concord is thrilled that hundreds of millions of people are “active in social justice” grassroots organizations (Boston Globe letter 3/24/10). From my point of view, most of these “environmental and peace and justice organizations” do not, as Phillips claims, “make a better world.” Most are filled with busybodies who want to write laws, expand government and tell everyone else how to live their lives. For example, Mr. Phillips cites “citizen lobbying efforts…toward…local food purchases.” Why do we need local food lobbyists? If you want local food, buy local food; don’t pass laws forcing your neighbors to follow your example.

Another citizen of Concord, Henry David Thoreau, wrote in Walden: “Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated…If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Community Organizing 2.0: 'Climate Community Activism'

The Cambridge, Massachusetts Climate Emergency Congress (CEC) is a casebook study of a new movement of "climate community activism" that pushes sustainability issues in municipal governments. It is a worldwide movement that bears watching.

Read full article on American Thinker

Monday, March 15, 2010

Talking Point Alert

This letter in the Globe repeats the talking point that Climategate was about a few "minor" errors in thousands of pages of top-notch scientific reporting. Just because, as the letter writer admits, this point has been "stated many times" doesn't make it true.


Science is not a popularity contest
March 15, 2010
IN HIS March 3 op-ed column “Gore still hot on his doomsday rhetoric,’’ Jeff Jacoby ridicules Al Gore for not “backing down’’ as the case for global warming “is melting faster than . . . glaciers.’’ Jacoby needs to get his facts straight.

The errors discovered in a few paragraphs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports are minor points that in no way undermine the conclusion of the several-thousand-page reports, as stated many times.

Jacoby cites that polls show that a smaller percentage of the public believes that global warming is serious. Science is not a popularity contest. Would the Globe publish a piece that disagrees with other scientific facts, or that claims that Mars is hot and Venus is cold?

The op-ed page is for people to voice their own opinions. They are not entitled to their own facts.

Patrik Jonsson
Somerville

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Haditha Marines judged guilty by NYT Book Review

The front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review has a review of Black Hearts, which begins with the following statement:
Of all the crimes that sullied the record of the United States military in Iraq — the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the killings of 24 Iraqi men, women and children by Marines in November 2005 in Haditha…

The Marines accused of murder in Haditha were in fact all cleared of charges. I can’t say for sure that nothing untoward happened in Haditha, but it’s clear that exoneration in a military court will not exonerate the Marines in the historical record as reported by the mainstream media. From now on, Abu Ghraib and Haditha will be code words for American evil perpetrated on innocent third world civilians.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Is the NFL Socialistic?

With the threat of an NFL player walkout in the news, the Boston Globe editorial board grabbed the opportunity to bring up the fatuous argument that football is a socialist enterprise.

Full article on American Thinker

Karl Marx on the 50 Yard Line

Number 4 on American Thinker!

Is the NFL 'Socialistic'?