On this last day of the year 2007 A.D. (Yes, I say Anno Domini rather than the politically correct C.E.), I have three articles I would like to bring to the front. The first is a column by Dr. Walter Williams:
Whenever there is a case of white on black crime, whether real or alleged, it becomes front-page headline news. But, when it is black on white crime, well, then it is treated differently by Old Media.
Dr. Walter Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well. Oh yeah, for those of you who didn't know it, he is also a black man.
Here is what he writes about this issue over at TownHall.com:
| If you're like I am, you've heard scores of media reports about the 2006 Duke University rape case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black stripper at a wild party at the home of one of the team members. These guys, convicted by the news media and Duke faculty, were later found innocent. It turned out that Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong was running for re-election. In seeking the black vote, he concealed DNA evidence that would have exonerated the lacrosse players. ... I don't know about you, but it was just recently that I heard about a gruesome murder in Knoxville, Tenn., that is far worse than the false charges in the Duke rape case and is at least as horrible, if not more so, than the dragging death of James Byrd. Unlike the Duke rape case and the Jasper lynching, the national news media's coverage of the interracial Knoxville murders paled in comparison. On Jan. 6, 2007, University of Tennessee student Channon Christian and her boyfriend, Christopher Newsom, were carjacked and kidnapped in Knoxville. Both of them were later murdered. According to a 46-count indictment, suspects Darnell Cobbins, Lemaricus Davidson, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman, all blacks, are charged with committing rape, including sodomy against Christian and Newsom, both of whom are white. After being raped, Newsom was shot several times and his body was found burned along nearby railroad tracks. Christian was forced to witness her boyfriend's rape, torture and subsequent murder before she was ultimately raped, tortured and murdered. The police discovered her body inside a large trash can in the kitchen of the home where the murders took place. Before disposing of her body, the murderers poured bleach or some other cleaning agent down her throat in an effort to destroy DNA evidence. Trial dates have been set for next May. |
Dr. Williams rightly asks where the news media is and why they aren't covering this incident as closely and completely as they did the Duke fake-rape case. He also rightly asks why the NAACP doesn't speak out about this as they spoke out against the prosecution of the Jena 6.
Why is this so important to us? Read on:
| According to the 2004 FBI National Crime Victimization Survey, in most instances of interracial crimes, the victim is white and the perpetrator is black. In the case of interracial murder for 2004, where the race of victim and perpetrator is known, more than twice as many whites were murdered by a black than cases of a white murdering a black. The failure of civil rights leaders, people like Jackson and Sharpton, as well as politicians to vocally condemn black-on-white crime -- and the relative silence of the news media in reporting it -- is not simply a matter of double standards. It's dangerous, for it contributes to a pile of racial kindling awaiting a racial arsonist to set it ablaze. |
The column is short but profound and can be accessed on-line here:
Hiding Black Interracial Crimes
Dr. Walter Williams
TownHall.com
December 26, 2007
Since 2008 is a Presidential election year, it would be a good idea to start looking at the campaign promises of the various candidates and how those promises reflect on certain relevent issues. Probably the biggest issue is that of the economy. We all know that the market is heading for a massive readjustment pretty soon, probably within the next year. The question will be: how do we respond to it?
Many Democrats have already decided that the solution is to impose New Deal style socialist policies on the United States. But is that really a good idea?
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Amity Schlaes has the following:
| Notwithstanding the largest peacetime appropriation in the history of the world, the New Deal recovery remained incomplete. From 1934 on--the period when the spending ramped up--monetary troubles were subsiding, and could no longer be blamed alone for the Depression. The story of the mid-1930s is the story of a heroic economy struggling to recuperate but failing to do so because lawmakers' preoccupation with public works rather got in the way of allowing productive businesses to expand and pull the rest forward. ... People became accustomed to a sort of calculus of frustration. The closer the country got to the prosperity of 1929, the more impossible reaching such prosperity seemed. The 1930s came to be known as the always recovering but never recovered decade. The Dow itself confirmed this pessimistic assessment by stubbornly remaining below 1929 levels through World War II and into the 1950s. The relevant points for today are simple. The famous "multiplier effect" of public spending may exist. U.S. cities do indeed need new highways, new buildings and new roads, maybe even from government. But these needs should be weighed against damage that comes when officials create projects and jobs for political reasons. An emergency such as a Great Depression, a Sept. 11, a Katrina, can serve as a catalyst for an infrastructure project and for job creation too. But the dire moral quality of that emergency does not guarantee that the project undertaken in its name will be more efficient than your standard earmark. In other words, candidates may want to be careful as they climb onto FDR's shoulders. The New Deal edifice may look solid, but it doesn't form a good basis for the American future. |
Socialist policies have never succeeded in bringing any nation to economic prosperity. It didn't happen during the New Deal and certainly didn't happen when James Earl Carter unleashed his disasterous policies on the American economy back in the late 70's. So, why are the Dems so intent on inviting that same disaster here in the Y2k's? It would only lead to higher unemployment and more economic dispair which would in turn put a larger burden on the American people.
Free markets are the way to go, not inefficient central planning.
You can access the complete column on-line here:
The New Deal Jobs Myth
Amity Schlaes
OpinionJournal.com
December 31, 2007
And finally we have another story about alternative fuels and what they are really costing us. Eric Berger, writing for the Houston Chronicle brings us the following:
| The recent passage of the mammoth energy bill could have unintended consequences for the Gulf of Mexico that have nothing to do with oil and gas platforms. Under the law, production of ethanol is set to increase five-fold to 36 billion gallons a year by 2020. Some environmentalists are worried that the shift to ethanol — viewed as a home-grown alternative to foreign oil — could enlarge the northern Gulf's "dead zone," an 8,000-square-mile area so devoid of oxygen that fish, shrimp and other sea life cannot survive. Already ethanol, by doubling corn prices since 2002, has driven corn production to its highest levels since World War II. Growing corn requires considerably more nitrogen-based fertilizer than most crops. When the fertilizer runs off fields in the Midwest, it drains into the Mississippi and eventually reaches the Gulf of Mexico. "This year's dead zone is the third highest on record, and I think we're already seeing an impact from increased ethanol use," said Donald Scavia, a University of Michigan professor who studies farm practices and hypoxia, or low-oxygen water. Scientists say the Gulf's dead zone has grown larger since its discovery more than 20 years ago. According to Nancy Rabelais, a professor with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium who annually surveys the area, the dead zone has been about 15 percent bigger in the last five years than normal. |
It is a great truism of the Universe: you cannot get something for nothing. Sometimes the something you get is not worth it.
You can access the complete article on-line here:
Ethanol Stirring Coastal Concerns
Eric Berger
Houston Chronicle
December 31, 2007
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