Monthly Archives: January 2015

Free Speech, Images of Muhammed, and the American Press

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In the wake of the Islamic terrorist attack, sponsored, if not directed by the al Qaeda network, Charlie Hebdo (their site is down or overwhelmed as I write this) printed their next issue with an image of Muhammed on its cover.CharlieHebdoCover

Even as they cover the news of this story, though, as Howard Kurtz pointed out in his recent column, American “news” outlets refuse to print the image that is the center of this news story: Charlie Hebdo‘s cover. CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and the New York Times are among those refusing to complete their news stories by showing what it is they claim to be talking about. Kurtz wrote this about that decision:

[N]ews executives had to weigh the safety of their employees, as well as their usual practice of not running images that are gratuitously offensive to religion. (Yes, I know that some have run anti-Christian images in the past but seem to be more skittish about offending Muslims.)

The parenthetical in that cite gives the game away. News…executives…aren’t worried about safety, and they’re not concerned about gratuitous religious offense (they’re not worried about gratuitous offense at all—see the slurs and degrading stories they publish about Tea Partiers, conservative women, conservative blacks, anyone who doesn’t think like they do).

American news executives are cowards, plain and simple. And they’ve surrendered their erstwhile freedom to speak to Islamic terrorists in their cowardice.

It’s Time

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…for more…humor. So here’s some.

Q: How do you get an elephant into the fridge?

1.Open door.
2. Insert elephant.
3. Close door.

Q: How do you get a giraffe into the fridge?

1.Open door.
2. Remove elephant.
3. Insert giraffe.
4. Close door.

Q. The lion, the king of the jungle, decided to have a party. He invited all the animals in the jungle, and they all came except one. Which one?
A. The giraffe, because he was still in the fridge.
Q: Why do elephants wear shoes with yellow soles?
A: So you don’t see them when they float upside down in a bowl of custard.
Q: Have you ever seen an elephant floating upside down in a bowl of custard?
A: No, of course not.
Q: Why do elephants live in herds?
A: To get a wholesale discount on the shoes with yellow soles.
A man walks into a bar and sees a cow serving behind the counter.
“What are you staring at?” says the cow. “Never seen a cow serving drinks before?”
“It’s not that,” replies the man. “I just never thought the moose would sell this place.”

And (mercifully) finally:

Snow White, Tom Thumb and Quasimodo were walking down the street one day. “I wonder if I’m still the most beautiful woman in all the land” said Snow White.

“I wonder if I’m still the shortest man in all the land” said Tom Thumb.

“I wonder if I’m still the ugliest man in all the land” said Quasimodo. So the three decided to go and visit the magic mirror who would tell them if they still held their titles. Each went in alone to consult the mirror and came out to tell the others what they had found out. “Yes, I’m still the most beautiful in all the land” said Snow White.

“Yes, I’m still the shortest in all the land” said Tom Thumb.

“Who the hell is Camilla Parker-Bowles?” said Quasimodo.

Defending Freedom of Speech, Al Jazeera Style

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A leaked email from Al Jazeera English Editor and Executive Producer Salah-Aldeen Khadr, obtained by Fox News, had this remark, among others, in it:

Was this really an attack on “free speech?” Who is attacking free speech here exactly?

Defending freedom of expression in the face of oppression is one thing; insisting on the right to be obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile.

Khadr also suggested that the slogan “I am Charlie” is

an alienating slogan—with us or against us type of statement—one can be anti-CH’s racism and ALSO against murdering people.

It may well be that being “obnoxious and offensive just because you can is infantile;” however, the rub is in whose definition of obnoxious, whose definition of offensive, whose definition of appropriate response to offensiveness or to obnoxiousness is to be applied. When governments make those definitions, all we have is tyranny and the arbitrary rule of a northern Korea, or a Soviet Union, or an East Germany. Or an Iran, or a Hussein Iraq. Or an al Qaeda or an ISIS.

When individuals are free to determine the appropriate sanction to be mayhem, all we have is a Hobbesian existence where the strong determine, arbitrarily, what is “right,” and the weak must obey or die.

Murdering someone—or even “merely” assaulting someone—just because the murderer or the assaulter was offended or thinks the victim’s behavior infantile is always and everywhere brutally wrong, and the deed wants the severest of responses and sanctions.

All apologists like al Jazeera do is give these murderous despotisms and barbarians cover.

If we’re to have free speech, we must be free to be obnoxious and offensive, too, else we have no freedom of speech: someone always will define a remark as out of bounds, and ultimately all speech not preapproved by the strongest becomes forbidden.

And we will have free speech—it’s a necessary part of that Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness that are an indivisible part of the fabric of every man’s very existence—Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, etc, alike. Nor al Jazeeras, nor barbarians, nor Muslim terrorists, nor anyone else can deny us that, even though they may murder our bodies. Full stop.

It’s also true that one can stand against racism and against murdering people at the same time. But this is Khadr’s cynical strawman. There’s no racism involved here. There’s no oppression of any group of people here. Khadr will have to play with that dolly without me.

Syria and the Bomb

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In 2007, an Israeli air strike blew up Syria’s nuclear reactor facility (the reactor itself wasn’t yet completed) and with it Syria’s nuclear weapons program.

Or so we thought at the time. If Spiegel Online International‘s reporting can be taken as even a bit accurate, al Assad is still working on a bomb at a couple of different facilities.

According to IAEA research, Syria possesses up to 50 tons of natural uranium, enough material for three to five bombs once the enrichment procedure is completed.

Keep in mind that, with Israel’s size, three to five bombs is all it would take for this Iranian client state to wipe Israel off the map.

And this:

The Institute for Science and International Security in Washington D.C. likewise has strong indications for the existence of such stockpiles [including fuel rods for the blown up reactor-under-construction]….

And:

Analysts say that the Syrian atomic weapon program has continued in a secret, underground location. According to information they have obtained, approximately 8,000 fuel rods are stored there.

I hate unnamed sources of any sort; this is why such reporting needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But what if the reporting is accurate?

Outside Qusayr, which is 20 miles southwest of Homs (and which would be an added motive for Syria’s desperation to recapture Homs from the Syrian rebels)

satellite images show six structures: a guard house and five sheds, three of which conceal entrances to the facility below. The site also has special access to the power grid, connected to the nearby city of Blosah. A particularly suspicious detail is the deep well which connects the facility with Zaita Lake, four kilometers away. Such a connection is unnecessary for a conventional weapons cache, but it is essential for a nuclear facility.

SOI also claims to have copies of Hezbollah communications that refer to the “atomic factory” and that mentions Qusayr.

What worries me if even a couple of details are being accurately reported is this: what happens if Hezbollah, or ISIS, or al Qaeda units operating in Syria get hold of the raw uranium or the fuel rods—which are a more purified version of the uranium?

Leave It To A Broker

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Robert Greifeld, CEO of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc, had an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week that was subtitled, tellingly,

Moving too quickly amid signs of global economic trouble could damage growth and send stock and bond markets into turmoil.

December’s Fed Open Market Committee meeting minutes indicated, he said,

that the Fed believes US economic growth, which continues its long climb back, could trigger a change in monetary policy [toward raising interest rates off their near-zero levels].

This is problematic, Greifeld said:

Moving too quickly, amid persistent signs of global economic trouble, could have a damaging effect on economic growth and investors by sending stock and bond markets into turmoil.

These are two separate questions, though. The thing is, the stock markets only anticipate the underlying economy; they are not at all the underlying economy. What’s good for the markets is not at all the proper metric for assessing economic policy.

The concern about the impact of central banks raising interest rates on economies is one worth exploring in depth. The concern about the impact on the stock and bond markets (and yes, these markets have been good to me) is fluff, and should be put aside.

It’s certainly true that, aside from pure investors, the markets also are where companies get capital for expansion, R&D, and the like, whether by selling new ownership shares or by borrowing. “Turmoiled” markets can interfere with that. But with a sound economy, which consists of us ordinary citizens getting about our daily business, that turmoil resolves quickly.

The current artificially low and suppressed interest rates are future inflation waiting to explode, to the detriment of all of us. They are current suppression of income for all of us—in particular, the retired of us—who depend on fixed income instruments (read: interest paying bonds). They are an impediment to increased hiring for expansion that otherwise seems ready to start because businesses can’t borrow to fund their expansion—not because interest rates are too low for the businesses to pay, but because interest rates are too low for lenders to lend—whether those lenders be banks or company bond buyers.

It’s time to start raising interest rates to normal levels. The economy will benefit. Investors like me will take our lumps, but we’ll also do well in the longer run from that growing economy.