Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Larwyn's Linx: AZ acts to restore border sanity, amnesty lobby freaks

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Nation

AZ acts to restore border sanity, amnesty lobby freaks: Malkin
Good Riddance to Justice Stevens: Sowell
Dem Dirty Tricks: Crashing the Tea Party: Times

Gee, that was fast: DemCare-induced Doc Shortage: Powers
Phantom Racists Magically Heard by New Witness: GWP
Ilya at Notre Dame: RSM

FBI Had File on Obama’s Radical Grandfather: RWN
That's So Maverick: Wizbang
Sharks in the water for Hawaii's special election: LogMon

Economy

Small Business Optimism: Low and Headed South: Mish
Governor Undeterred By Right Wingers' Threats: Ace
Obama ‘Scaring Dickens Out of Small Businesses’: BMW

Obama's Assault on Non-Union Businesses: RWN
When reading about 'good news' on the deficit...: Hewitt

Climate & Energy

ClimateGate Whitewash: AT
Holdren: U.S. can't be #1 in science and technology forever: BlogProf

Media

Calling all radicals: Podesta is hiring: Mattera
Surprise! Remnick Plays the Race Card: PJM
Obama's disregard for media reaches new heights: WaPo (Milbank)

MSNBC Declines Broadly Among Adults 25-54 vs. 2009 Q1: TVBTN
Frank Rich's Reckless Slander: AT
Al Sharpton Show - 'There Is Not A Black Person On The US Supreme Court': BlogProf

Washington Post begins to dismantle "Tea Party is racism" meme: Wizbang
Hannity and Rubio at The Villages: Tackett

World

Why Israel's Struggle Is Our Struggle, Too: EuropeNews
The Muslim Brotherhood in Germany: GoV
Tariq Ramadan and the Three Public Faces of Islam: PJM

A Tale of Two Cities: WklyStd (Bayefsky)
How Has President Obama Been Weak and Lost Credibility Over Iran: Answering a Reader's Question: BRubin
Obama Loses Another Contact Lens While Meeting World Leader: Powers

Fade to Red: Demoralized, Crisis-ridden Amerika: Moonbattery
He Who Controls The Health System, Controls "Information": LegalIns
Somali Radio Stations Comply With Islamists’ Music Ban: iOTW

SciTech

Neil Armstrong on Obama's NASA Plans: "A Long Downhill Slide to Mediocrity": Ace
Google ready to get down to business: CNet
Nanny State becomes Wet Nurse State: RWN

Cornucopia

Moonbattery applied to the automobile: Moonbattery
The Short List of Candidates to Replace Justice Stevens: Feed Yer ADHD
Ain't It Just Terrible When Powerful Organizations Cover Up Sex Abuse Scandals?: Moonbattery

Images: Maktoob News

Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: So it goes in Shreveport


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Engagement with Syria working out well for Obama, Kerry and Clinton: Assad is arming Hezbollah with long-range Scud missiles

I wonder how all of those wonderful speeches, the flowery rhetoric and the humiliating, bended-knee outreach to the Arab Street is working out?

Syria Gave Scuds to Hezbollah, U.S. Says


Syria has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials alleged, in a move that threatens to alter the Middle East's military balance and sets back a major diplomatic outreach effort to Damascus by the Obama administration.

...Republicans pressed on Capitol Hill to block the appointment of a new American ambassador to Damascus, according to congressional officials. The White House said it was pressing ahead.

The Scuds are believed to have a range of more than 435 miles—placing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear installations all within range of Hezbollah's military forces. During a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used rockets with ranges of 20 to 60 miles.

Israeli officials called Scud missiles "game-changing" armaments that mark a new escalation in the Mideast conflict. They alleged that Mr. Assad is increasingly linking Syria's military command with those of Hezbollah and Iran.

...President Barack Obama has made engaging Mr. Assad's government a cornerstone of his Mideast policy, hoping to woo Damascus into a regional peace process and lure it from a strategic alliance with Iran.

...A spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, who went as an emissary to Damascus on April 1, said that he couldn't comment... Detractors of the White House's policy of engagement with Damascus seized on the news Tuesday as evidence Mr. Assad has no intention of breaking Syria's strategic ties to Tehran and Hezbollah.

... "It's increasingly hard to argue that the engagement track has worked," said Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a regional think tank with no party affiliation that some view as pro-Israel.

Little wonder the Democrats are known far and wide as "The Party of Weakness".

This isn't going to end well.


Hat tip: Dan from New York. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

For all of his talk about reducing the spread of nuclear weapons, the President's doing a bang-up job of neutron-bombing the economy

The new health care bill has already resulted in the cancellation of the construction of at least 60 new hospitals and thousands of beds. That's because doctor-owned facilities are effectively banned by DemCare. And the President's awesome stewardship of the economy continues to pay dividends, as the thousands of private sector jobs that would have resulted from these hospitals have been vaporized, kinda like they were hit with a neutron-bomb.

The jobs are gone -- and only the people remain.

Evidence for the non-stop eradication of the private economy continues to roll in, most recently in terms of our bankrupt Treasury Department, which is experiencing -- uhm -- unusual outflows this tax season.

Through the 14th week of the calendar year (not fiscal), cumulative tax withholdings in 2010 are $477.9 billion, $13.5 billion less than the $491.4 billion in 2009. Yet regardless of what the only organic source of revenue for the Treasury looks like, the Treasury (and IRS) are issuing ever increasing tax refunds with the abandon of a drunken sailor. The chart below compares how many more refunds on a cumulative basis have been issued in 2010 compared to 2009. Oddly, it is also $13 billion, however in the wrong direction.

Net out refunds from gross withholdings, shows just how blatant the lies is that the Treasury is collecting more money than previously. On a cumulative basis 2010 compared to 2009 has seen a net $26.5 billion less withheld by the Treasury. We fail to see how this number is in any way an indication of efficient money management. Coupled with record unemployment benefit outlays, surging discretionary spending, and record net bond issuance, and the US Treasury is rapidly realizing that should it be unable to fund itself using its Bernanke-Jiabao Tungsten credit card, it is all over.

The following graph illustrates just how bad this Democrat Congress and administration have mismanaged the economy. Despite trillions in 'Stimulus', Omnibus spending bills, limitless unemployment checks, and every other manner of Orwellian central planning program, the government continues to hemorrhage cash this year compared to last.

Things aren't getting better. Net tax withholdings are $26.5 billion worse this year than last.

But I blame Bush. Or Cheney. Or Halliburton. Or anyone but Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

Because that would be racist. Or so the Democrats tell me.


Why BlackBerry Should "Go All Borg" on the Android

RIM is on a roll, both in financial terms and in its swath of compelling new offerings. But it faces challenges, as all successful tech companies do, from competitors new and old. This "position paper" -- such as it is -- describes a completely personal take on how RIM can learn from the lessons of the past and perhaps avoid the tidal wave of obsolesence that so often seems to swamp powerful incumbents.

Given the dramatic rise of the mobile Internet, compressed deadlines for strategic actions are certain. I therefore propose a simple course of action that could help mitigate risk while offering the potential for top-line growth, differentiation and market share for the maker of the BlackBerry. Too radical? Too tame? Just plain silly? Please let me know in the comments.

Time Grows Short

Why now? Mary Meeker has eloquently described the ramp-up time for mobile Internet adoption as "exponentially faster" than the "explosive" growth of the desktop web.

Is it therefore unreasonable to anticipate analogous corporate interplay among hardware, software and service providers? It is all but certain that events will play out more rapidly and with more market brutality than we saw with the desktop web.

The Networked Desktop and Corporate Endgame Analogies

In the desktop world, Microsoft ignored, ridiculed, fought and -- finally -- succumbed to open source. In fact, MSFT's coupon deal with Novell was a tacit admission that Unices (Linux included) represented a significant IP challenge to the legal and competitive hegemony it had once wielded.

If I can be so bold as to map the world of networked desktops to the mobile Internet landscape, I propose the following analogies:

1. RIM plays the role of Novell: an early, dominant leader in advanced solutions for corporations;
2. Apple plays the role of Microsoft: utilizing dominance among consumers and early corporate adopters to begin capturing mindshare and positioning itself to supercede the incumbent (RIM);
3. Android plays the role of LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), a stack designed for ease of development, rapid augmentation and improvement, and unparalleled cost-effectiveness -- i.e., completely free to use;

These analogies are, of course, just that. They are imperfect and imprecise, but they do provide one historical prism through which we can view the forthcoming revolution in mobile.

RIM appears, for example, to be anything but a staid Novell, which suffered from severe strategic and product management gaffes during the course of its war with Microsoft. That said, the loyalty that Apple iPhone users have to the platform appears unprecedented. A recent study indicates that 90%+ of users would resist switching platforms short of a threat at gunpoint.

Microsoft, to this day, has resisted embracing its chief competitor in the networked server stack (LAMP) with the exception of the PHP programming language. PHP's popularity -- and the fact that, early on, it established a beachhead on Windows Servers -- forced Microsoft to act lest it lose significant market share among ISPs and other players of scale.

Could Microsoft sell its proprietary packages on Linux variants? Would there be a market for a closed-source SQL Server for Red Hat Linux? Could MSFT sell its own File-and-Print platform for Novell's SUSE? Given the market-share achieved by Linux,I strongly suspect that the Redmondians could capture significant swaths of "blue ocean" among corporate users who require major-league maintenance and support. Yet, these products are unavailable and -- presumably -- will never be brought to market, even as Linux continues to gain momentum.

Of primary concern for RIM: First Mover Advantage is Highly Compressed

Given these rough analogies, what sort of moves could RIM execute to mitigate erosion in market share? As the iPhone and Android spread to various carriers and as their support for corporate integration improves, so too does the possibility of one or more dramatic, breathrough applications arising on those platforms, leaving RIM a step behind.

The scale and diversity of developers on the iPhone and Android platforms represents a formidable foe that RIM has no choice but to confront head-on. The BlackBerry must choose one of two paths:

1) The Microsoft approach: assume that every platform is the enemy; resist it at all costs even as differentiation, margins and market share diminish;
2) The Borg approach: embrace and extend strategic platforms.

The Borg approach does not need to be executed immediately. Certain decision-points (e.g., a minimum market share threshhold) could be formulated that would dictate when a rollout is warranted. That said, R&D in these areas would seem to be critical in order to prepare for what I think may be inevitable.

The Borg approach could be used to damage another competitor. For example, imagine that RIM created a full-fledged, BES-compatible security solution for Android, but ignored iPhone. Improved corporate Android acceptance, at the expense of iPhone, would be likely.

What about cannbalization?

I can hear the question now: why would RIM cannibalize itself? I have a simple philosophy: if you can't cannibalize yourself, someone else will throw you in the cauldron. That said, I do suggest some thresholds, at which point RIM management could choose to engage in these areas. So long as market share for its targeted organizations stays above that marker, RIM could choose to leave these products in R&D or in a limited beta test.

But preparing for a likely onslaught, whether in the form of a dramatic new application or a new "killer device" seems like a sound approach.

Security as the be-all and end-all

RIM achieved dominance as a corporate handset not simply because of its excellent usability, but also due to its attention to detail in the realms of security, policy and manageability. Microsoft, despite countless revisions and upgrades of Windows Mobile, has yet to match RIM in any of these areas.

As state regulations become more onerous -- added to the daunting requirements of PCI, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, GLBA, FINRA, the SEC, etc. -- it's clear that bullet-proof security will be the first and overarching requirement of corporate IT decision-makers.

The current solutions for securing mobile devices -- from vendors like Good Technologies, MobileIron, Sybase, etc. -- are relatively immature. The vendors are, in comparison to RIM, tiny. And managing "yet another technology" requires IT groups to add soft-dollar (FTE) costs at a time when they can least afford it.

The BlackBerry solution addresses all of the above:

- Its solutions are provably secure, robust and mature
- As a vendor, it is already a trusted powerhouse for corporate IT decision-makers
- The BES management solution is present in nearly every major shop, which alleviates the FTE issue

Mobile Commerce, Built Upon a Foundation of Security

Let's assume for a moment that RIM has followed this advice to a tee and rolled out a secure, BES-compliant platform for Android. What interesting applications could then be deployed using this foundation?

I contend that a true mobile wallet, enabling one-click (oops, did I violate an Amazon patent?) payment using PayPal, PAC (pre-authorized checking), e-coupons presented on-screen, etc. would be a logical and compelling offering. Furthermore, with BES already present within the shops of major merchants, value-added extensions to popular accounting and transactional systems (A/P, A/R, EFT and so forth) would seem to be natural differentiators.

Seeing as it installed in so many important shops, BES represents a significant asset. Commerce enablement and back-office integration for merchants would appear to be powerful methods to solidify its place in the IT infrastructure and to create new revenue streams through commerce integration and enablement.

Summary

BlackBerry should be prepared to "drop the hammer" on the mobile market by displacing the third-party security solutions that are beginning to gain traction in corporate environments. By doing so, it could not only capture "blue ocean" market share, but could potentially open profitable new fronts through which it can interoperate with, and monetize, existing and unanticipated applications.

One day, perhaps BES could stand for "Borg Enterprise Server"!


Mary Meeker presentation: GigaOM.

Larwyn's Linx: Advice for John Boehner

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Nation

Advice for John Boehner: RWN
Oops: DemCare strips Congress of health coverage?: Hot Air
MN teacher organizes anti-Tea Party protest?: GWP

Expose the Party Crashers: PJM
Pics, video from Clinton, MI Tea Party Express stop: BlogProf
Get involved now!: Adrienne

Economy

What's behind SEIU head's resignation?: Malkin
No such thing as a free sanctuary city: WExam
Obama to create Post Office of health care: York

Radical group perfects legal bank heists: WExam
Uncle Sam opens the bank vault to activists: WExam
The Fiscal Nightmare of the Welfare State: PJM

Climate & Energy

I Went to Duke University: Bubba
Death by CAFE standards: AT
Dreams from my pipe: CBullitt

Ecomoonbattery Threatens Los Angeles With Insolvency: RWN
Jesse Watters confronts Al Gore at Duke: GWP

Media

What 'Radical' Really Looks Like: RWN
Newsweek Covering Tea Parties With Unusual Restraint: Driscoll
Breitbart: taking the fight to the MSM: MoneyRunner

ObamaCare and the Supreme Court: Barone
Obama attends non-existent soccer game?: AT
Macomb Daily smears conservatives as being 'anti-government': BlogProf

World

The Welfare State: British Style: RWN
How did Iran go so wrong?: NRO
Diplomatic Jihad against Israel: Geller

Obama's Kyrgyzstan Disaster: AT
Hillary Finally Spots the 800-pound Radioactive Gorilla: PJM
Plot to Bomb Times Square and Grand Central Subway Stations Revealed: Potluck

“Outliers”, not “rogue states”: Fausta
Here we bow again: CFB
Change! Iranian Regime Wants Obama Tried By International Tribunal: GWP

SciTech

KFC Double Down Sandwich: Destroyer of Touchscreens: Gizmodo
Google CEO: 'We're now paranoid' about security: CNet
Breastfeeding rooms hidden in health care law: CNN

Cornucopia

Inside the Actor's Studio with the Simpsons: Ace
How Complex is the IRS?: BigGovt

Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: Virtuous Republic

Monday, April 12, 2010

SEIU invested tens of millions on Obama and DemCare in order to replenish its woefully underfunded pensions -- on your dime

The SEIU spent $85 million on Barack Obama's campaign and millions more on pushing for DemCare. Among its biggest rewards will be millions of medical civil servants -- and millions of new, dues-paying members. The Wall Street Journal's September 10, 2009 op-ed ("Read the Union Health-Care Label -- Get ready for Detroit-style labor relations in our hospitals"), describes state-run health care as opening "the door to implement forced unionization schemes" by reclassifying in-home health-care (and child-care) contractors as union members.

But why is the SEIU so desperate for state-run health care? Put simply, union bosses appear to be underfunding their members' pensions, deliberately and systematically, while enriching their own plans. And someone has to make up the shortfall. That someone is you.

Of all major unions, the SEIU appears to be one of the worst at the practice of underfunding its retirement obligations. Aside from being a major supporter of the far left Democrat agenda, it is tied to ACORN and its variants, the the disgraced posse of community agitators. So the act of skirting ethical, legal and moral hurdles doesn't appear to be a stumbling block for this crew.

The Rank Hypocrisy of the SEIU

The SEIU argues on its website that 401(K) plans are bad for workers. It claims that defined benefit funds are superior tools to assure workers' pensions. It would seem reasonable that the SEIU, then, would ensure that its 2 million members would benefit from generous, well-funded pensions.

But that is not the case -- at least for rank-and-file union members. ATR reports that:

• In 2006, the average SEIU members' pension plan was only 82% funded with assets of about $19,000 per person.
• Separate funds for employees of the SEIU itself were 105% funded, with about $85,000 per person.
• And funds covering SEIU officers and employees were 123% funded, holding roughly $80,000 per person.

However, only ten years earlier, in 1996, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund possessed nearly 110% of the funds it would need for all of its pension obligations.

The Reason for the Disconnect Between Union Bosses and Members

So why are the union bosses' pension plans overfunded at 123% and the rank & file union members plans are near "endangered status" at 82%?

While the union blames market conditions, actual fund performance metrics demonstrate that this is not the case. It appears, instead, that the playing field has been tilted to reward the union bosses and union employees at the expense of the rank-and-file.

The problem exists not only in the SEIU's national plans. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce revealed that 13 SEIU local pension plans were less than 80% funded. Six were less than 65% funded, clearly in a danger zone.

For example, the Massachusetts Service Employees Pension Fund fell from nearly 110% to 70% funded in 10 years; and the SEIU 1199 Upstate Pension Fund fell from 115% to 75% since its inception in 1999.

To regain some semblance of fiscal stability, the SEIU has wagered heavily on forcing other employees to help fund its shattered pension reserves. That was the motivation behind the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) ("Card Check"), a major Democrat initiative for 2009, and one on which the SEIU spent tens of millions of its members' money.

Since Card Check is in serious trouble with lawmakers, state-run health care must suffice.

• The public option could force hospital and other health care workers into underfunded pensions, putting their retirements at risk
• The average union pension has resources to cover only 62% of what is owed to participants
• Less than one in every 160 union-represented workers is covered by a union pension with required assets
• The PBGC already supports upwards of 30,000 pension plans
• Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the governmental pension insurer, will assume $86.7 billion in liabilities by 2015
• The PBGC limits the benefits in multi-employer plans to $13,000 a year per retiree, compared with roughly $52,000 for single-employer plans.
• In 2007, the PBGC reported a deficit of $955 million, a $216 million increase from the previous year
• In July of 2009, the PBGC agreed to take on $6.2 billion in pension liabilities from bankrupt auto supplier Delphi Corp

DemCare was a Democrat payoff to union bosses, who fear what will happen to them when the massive pension disparity between workers and bosses becomes widely known.

DemCare was designed, first and foremost, to reward the SEIU. It's not about health care. It's about the redistribution of tax dollars from your wallet into the unions' coffers. And, no matter how these central planners, these masterminds, swirl the money around, their unfunded pension liabilities will crush taxpayers as certainly as night follows day.

Larwyn's Linx: Crash Course -- Illustrated Guide to Tea Party Saboteurs

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Nation

Crash Course: Illustrated Guide to Tea Party Saboteurs: Malkin
3,000+ welcome Tea Party Express in Clinton, MI: BlogProf
Beware the Tea Party Crashers: RWN

The Democrat Race Lie: B&R
Back to the future: the new campus radicals: NAS
Stupak's disdain for regular Americans: RWN

Economy

With 10% unemployment, Obama issues 1M green cards: GWP
Obama: 'No one I've met is looking for a handout': JWF
Behavioral economics hooey for better living: Fausta

How Fannie & Freddie Foiled Regulators: Tapscott
Unions Pushing States Toward Broken Promises: LegalIns
SEIU Exec: white union members rabidly racist: GWP

Media

New Obama Bio Strengthens Case for Dreams Fraud: Cashill
Quotes of the Day: Hot Air
Your higher taxes pay for my health care: WashReb

Boston Globe: Correct by Mistake: Wizbang
Coulter on Steele: Democrats attacking him because of his skin color: GWP
A Tour Through Recession America: Hanson

World

The UK Sinks Even Lower: Muslims Now Allowed To Throw Things To Express 'Protest': JoshuaPundit
Socialized medicine at its best: NHS caught harvesting organs: TAB
Muslim staff escape NHS hygiene rule: Telegraph (UK)

The Two Best Arab Journalists Warn What A Nuclear-Armed Iran Means: BRubin
Moose hunter bags community organizer: GWP
Romanian Immigrant: ‘Let’s say I came from hell’: BMW

The patient as government pawn: Malkin
Missing: 300 Somalis Smuggled Into US By Virginia Man Linked to Terrorists: GWP
CPUSA rush to judgement on Kyrgyzstan…actually a down right lie: Ameristroika

SciTech

The Amazing Media Habits of 8- to 18-year olds: Insider
A Marvel of Engineering: C&S
Why Renren is better than Facebook: Chinahush

Cornucopia

Just to make Huckabee freak out: DPU
todaze public tv get your learn on: SondraK
Capsule Apartment appears in Beijing, 2 square meters each: Chinahush

Today's Larwyn's Linx Sponsored By: PJTV is recruiting citizen-reporters for Tax Day Tea Parties!

QOTD:

"..It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.." --Samuel Adams


Sunday, April 11, 2010

Smart Power: Khameini rips Obama for threatening Iran with nukes. Clenched fist to commence in 3... 2... 1...

I haven't been keeping up with the news, but I was wondering how President Obama's overtures o' peace to the Iranians are going. You know, when the President said, "if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us."

Anyone know how that Smart Power™ diplomacy is working out?

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed US President Barack Obama on Sunday for threatening a "nuclear attack" even as Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he did not believe Iran had an atomic bomb.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Iran will officially complain to the United Nations regarding Obama's "threats"... "He (Obama) has implicitly threatened Iranians with nuclear weapons," state television quoted Khamenei as saying... "...the head of a state is threatening a nuclear attack," said Iran's spiritual guide.

"The US president's statements are disgraceful. Such comments harm the US and they mean that the US government is wicked and unreliable."

In a policy shift, Washington said on Tuesday it would use atomic weapons only in "extreme circumstances" and would not attack non-nuclear states -- but singled out "outliers" Iran and North Korea as exceptions.

...[Iran's] Natanz facility has a capacity of 60,000 centrifuges, and Iran has been steadily enriching uranium there for years in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions and the threat of a fourth... enrichment lies at the heart of Western concerns over Iran's nuclear programme as the sensitive process can produce fuel for a reactor or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

Consider this exhibit nine million that my Dad was right. Many years ago, he told me: "Son, everything Democrats touch turns to crap."


'I am not an African-American! I am Lloyd Marcus, AMERICAN!'

El Marco has the must-see photos of the Tea Party Express rolling through a town near you.

And he points us to an outstanding article by Bob Parks, which I'd encourage you to whip out at any legacy media reporter who tries to paint Tea Partiers as racists.

It's called "The Democrat Race Lie" and it's an exceptional summary for dimwits on the left.

Yes -- I mean you, Garofalo.


Bitter Spinster Columnist Visits Saudi Arabia, Observes Rampant Misogyny -- And Bashes Catholic Church For Mistreatment of Women

Funny, I didn't know there were any Catholic institutions allowed in Saudia Arabia. Yet, somehow, the creative genius of one Dowd-comma-Maureen makes the conceptual leap from the malevolent misogyny of Sharia law to... her downtrodden status as a female Catholic.

How could such spirited women [Saudi females], smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination?

I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

Gee, Maureen, conflating your own petty misery with this:

That's a woman receiving lashes for alleged adultery. Or this:

That's a woman who was stoned to death for alleged adultery. Or this:

That's a woman who was beheaded for... something. Must've been bad, though.

Truth be told, Mo, conflating your view of the Catholic Church and all of its painful and ugly scandals, with an endemic, sanctioned culture of brutality and misogyny seems a tad, well, stupid. Moronic, in fact.

It's amazing how none of these brave, bold Times columnists ever screw up enough courage to attack real religious extremism.

Here's hoping Pinchy moves MoDo behind a pay-wall again -- and soon. Her material is even more pathetic than the Bush-Cheney-Plame-Neocon column she ran for roughly 200 weeks in a row.


Hat tip: Memeorandum. Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!