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WILL THERE BE A SECOND OSIRAK ?

Israeli officials signal grave concerns about Iran’s nuclear facilities

CONSERVATIVES…BEWARE THE COMING OF THE “QUANGO”

No, it’s not an imported car, a type of bikini or an Australian animal. ” QUANGO” stands for ” Quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations “ and it is emerging as the hot, new idea of ” Third Way ” liberalism. An excerpt from The Progressive Policy Institute:

“An even more far-reaching reform would be to shift federal responsibilities to independent, nonprofit corporations — what the British call Quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations). Unlike PBOs, which remain government agencies, Quangos are independent but are in part publicly funded and governed by a government-appointed board. Ideally, these organizations combine the entrepreneurial spirit and competitive drive of the private sector with the public purpose of the government sector. For example, to give the federal government a catalytic role in boosting the skills of the American workforce, we should create a nonprofit National Skills Corporation governed by a board appointed by Congress and the president. ( for full article go here)

Well, that would be the ideal and most of us would support more innovative and entrepreneurial thinking in government; QUANGO’s however are not required to achieve that goal nor is that their primary purpose. In practice, QUANGOs will mean, after setting up a few apolitical service organizations, quietly broadening the rubric to include the existing constellation of Left-wing and transnationalist NGOs. Once affixed to the Federal trough outright, these ideological allies of the Democratic Party will be able to use your tax dollars to lobby for greater regulation, higher taxes, less sovereignty, gender feminist social policy,more gun control, multicultural propaganda in education, animal rights….. you get the idea. Now try to imagine a conservative President trying to cut off federal funds from NOW or the Sierra Club if they achieve QUANGO status and you understand the Trojan Horse potential of this idea.

QUANGOs are completely without any legitimate pretext as Congress may create independent agencies for major tasks whose employees are subject to both ethics requirements and more importantly, the Hatch Act -neither of which would apply to QUANGO’s. The educational, political and social service activities that these organizations carry out are already well served by securing tax exempt status from the IRS and soliciting voluntary contributions and grants from private foundations and the state and Federal governments for specific projects.

If liberal policies are so popular they do not need the government to reach into my wallet to fund their lobbying campaigns.

” THE WAHHABI MYTH” – SALAFI ISLAMISTS AND THEIR APOLOGETICS

I often post articles to make a point, generally a ” neocon” one, about the War on Terror and the threat posed by Islamism to core Western values of individual liberty, tolerance, free expression, democracy, capitalism and equality. As a blogger I’m far from unique in that regard and the overall tenor of public debate in it’s many forms has put considerable pressure on the less militant( i.e. non-violent) Islamists who unlike al Qaida seek to pursue the establishment and expansion of Sharia rule through legal means. As an example of this phenomena is a website ” The Wahhabi Myth” which, in addition to pushing sales of a book of the same name, seeks to obfuscate the connections between the extreme Salafism of Saudi Arabia and the terrorism of al Qaida. Even as allegedly positive propaganda the ideology found here, while presented in a voice designed to reassure the Western ear, remains quite scary.

IS RUSH GETTING OUT OF TOUCH ?

Following on the heels of Rush Limbaugh’s high profile analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger not being a true conservative came a thoughtful post on Rush vs. The Blogosphere by Eric at Classical Values ( Eric also links to the king of blogging, Instapundit)

I confess to being only an occasional listener to Rush but there have been times where he has been both insightful, deft of argument and witheringly funny all at once. Limbaugh has been the gold standard of talk radio for a long time, particularly conservative talk radio and he earned the success and fame that he has acquired. Much of Rush’s vast popularity has come from his being more in tune with the average radio listener than the liberal media elite and politicians he regularly lampoons. However, taken together Rush’s contempt for the blogosphere and his disdain for Arnold’s allegedly insufficient conservatism may be signs that Limbaugh’s enduring, stratospheric success may be eroding his connection to more ordinary folk, especially those in the relatively wide spectrum of thought called ” conservative ” who are not primarily ” social conservatives ” but are libertarians and moderate, small business, type conservatives. For example, today on his radio program Rush defended his remarks on Schwarzenegger by saying:

“Are there better qualified people on the ballot than Arnold? I happen to think so. Who are they? In due course, my friends. That’s why this thing has to spell out here. There are some people out there that have an (R) by their name who are pretty damn good.”

That may be, but unfortunately they most likely don’t have the financial resources that Schwarzenegger has to launch a serious -i.e. one likely to result in a GOP victory– campaign. What Rush is really arguing is that Arnold is not conservative enough and the implicit message is that Schwarzenegger isn’t a true conservative because he doesn’t loathe gays or want to ban all abortions. One wonders if El Rushbo remembers Barry Goldwater ? Is the GOP standard bearer going to have to be Russell Kirk in order to get the seal of approval from the EIB network ? Because if so, Republicans should get used to losing elections with purity, going down with banners flying.

But hey, at least that will bring back the Buchanan crowd.

Post-script: David Horowitz gets it even if Rush doesn’t.

LET THE WORD GO FORTH THAT THE TORCH HAS BEEN PASSED TO A NEW GENERATION…AND THAT THEY PASSED IT ON TO THE NEXT

Jeff at Caerdroia has a brilliant observation on the Boomers and the War on Terror. The money quote:

“The War on Terror is the first crisis the Boomers have faced. Their parents fought and won the Cold War, and suffered the consequences of Viet Nam and Watergate. The Boomers sat on the sidelines theorizing, and cheering on ideological ideals without any sense of personal responsibility. Bill Clinton in many ways was the avatar of personal irresponsibility – nihilism made manifest. Now that the crisis is upon the Boomers, the instinctive habit of many is to return to their youth, and shift responsibilities once more to the grownups. Sadly, the real grownups are not in the international community, but in the generation younger than the Boomers.”

I think this also neatly explains the reflexive tendency in Congress and the media ( both dominated by the Fifty-something age cohort) to reference any and all foreign policy problems through the lens of the Vietnam War experience, a reference totally lost on anyone under thirty and is relatively irritating to those over seventy whose formative war experience was WWII.