Monday, January 03, 2005

Biscuits and Gravy - January 3, 2005

I don't think Mrs. Philosopher is going to go for this
In Labour Britain, we all need a tax break. Now it seems, if you want to stop the government taking its bite, you'd do well to become a Muslim, marry four wives, and declare each spouse a tax write-off.
They had a hot time in the old town on New Year's Eve!
More than 330 cars were set on fire in the suburbs of Paris. Since the number increased a mere nine from the previous year, the Interior Ministry noted that there is "stability in the phenomena of urban violence."
...
To add to this sad comedy, one imbecilic French apologist, sociologist Michel Wieviorka, stated the violence is "response from victims of social exclusion to our society of consumption."
Sheesh, a French sociologist. What could be lower?

I am sure Anders Jacobsen's heart is pure, but if you are going to give money to the United Nations, you might as well throw it in the toilet. (Via JustOneMinute who probably wouldn't approve of my take on this.)

That Sounds About Right: Opponents of the Death Penalty Murder 23 People in "Protest"

Campus life, fully exposed
In the fall of 2000, I promised my daughter the freshman that I wouldn't write about Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.) until she graduated. As a result, you readers learned nothing from me about the naked dorm, the transgender dorm, the queer prom, the pornography-for-credit course, the obscene sidewalk chalking, the campus club named crudely for a woman's private part, or the appearance on campus of a traveling anti-Semitic roadshow, loosely described as a pro-Palestinian conference.

Instead of hot news items like these, you usually just hear that Wesleyan is very "diverse." Newsweek once hailed the school as the "hottest" diversity campus in America, apparently using the word diversity in its normal campus meaning of "no diversity at all." A one-liner about the campus is that "Wesleyan is so diverse that you can meet people here from almost every neighborhood in Manhattan." And the students tend to have opinions from every known corner of MoveOn.org.
Sounds like a class joint. (Via Betsy's Page)

NEW MARC RICH LINK STINK
New details of billionaire trader Marc Rich's shady oil deals under the U.N. oil-for-food program are emerging, The Post has learned.

These include deals with front companies that have connections to Saddam Hussein's underground financial network.

In particular, prosecutors are probing four suspicious deals that took place in February through April 2001.

In these cases, Rich was listed as a secondary buyer of oil contracts originally allocated by Saddam to mysterious French and Egyptian companies.

The questionable deals began a month after sanctions-buster Rich, a convicted tax dodger, received his midnight pardon from then-President Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton, the gift that keeps on giving.

Still crazier than an outhouse rat
Unknown to practically everyone except windy Cindy is that Mr. Soros is quietly divesting himself, even as we speak, of anything in his private equity group that contains Third Party money. To circumvent what he frets could be the Bush Cabinet, a k a The Grim Reapers, coming after him in terms of SEC, FTC, IRS or any other initials, all's being sold off or spun away from him. Even shucking some stuff he personally owns outright. However, whatever's retained will be whatever has him as its sole investor with his own money of which he has approximately $16 billion, give or take an IRA. All will be placed into some newly defined entity.
SPECTRE?