Hirsi Ali

Here is an interesting article on Hirsi Ali.

When I went to school I was taught that when you are writing you set up your story at the beginning, then you give your arguments and make your conclusion.

So here’s the setup. Ms Ali polarizes people and is damaging the debates on Islam.

Who can be surprised that this woman polarizes people? That some consider her a kind of Joan of Arc, while others see her as an incorrigible radical? As someone who says that she wants to help oppressed Muslim women, and yet may do more damage to them than good?

The article talks about her and her need for bodyguards. It talks about her moves around the world, the clothes she wears etc. Yet nowhere does it say how she is doing damage to Muslim women. Instead it just makes her sound like a woman with strong opinions. ……Yeah? and?

Anyway – the article was interesting but don’t hope for information on the set up.

Contracts

JK posts on “the Right to Contract”

But I think Stephen Moore has the more credible objection: how can you go in and renegotiate people’s mortgages? Can the government get me $100 off the TV I bought last year? If you want to bail folks out, that is dumb but legal (by today’s lax standards).
I just don’t get how can rewrite an existing contract and proscribe a lender from adjusting a rate in accordance with a signed contract. That is a lot scarier than a stupid bailout plan.

And why would the government interfere? In order to avoid a recession. Or not. From the LATimes we hear of a study saying that there will be no recession in 2008.

Despite rising oil prices, sinking housing prices and a turbulent stock market, the national economy will be saved by some of its apparent weak spots, the quarterly UCLA Anderson forecast stated.

Interesting……
This sounds like another major/critical/end of the world sort of thing where you need government interference.
Let’s all meet in Bali and legislate people to start living like cavemen in order to avoid global warming that has already started and which may or may not be an ok thing depending upon which predictions you’re reading or where you live.

As world leaders scramble to address global warming, sceptical environmentalist Bjoern Lomborg finds himself increasingly alone in his claim that climate change poses no imminent threat to the planet.
Lomborg, author of the best-selling book “The Sceptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World,” acknowledges that the climate is warming but insists greenhouse gases “are not the priority over all priorities.”

The 42-year-old Dane, who once headed Denmark’s Environmental Assessment Institute, has for years been speaking out against the increasingly mainstream concern that global warming is causing sea levels to rise and changing weather patterns in a way that will soon wreak havoc on world ecosystems and all of humankind.

“There are other global challenges to address this century like the battle against AIDS, malaria, malnutrition and poverty,” he told AFP.

Two things:
1-You are not going to get people in poverty to give a hoot about global warming. They are concerned with eating and having a roof over their heads.
2-You are going to get rich people to holler about global warming as long as they don’t really have to do much about it. (too many examples to site here)