Quite marvellous: An Individual With a Strong Voice Makes a Difference

Post below lifted from Bruce Kesler. See the original for links

Both houses of the New York State legislature have now passed what some are calling "Rachel's Law." It provides protection to American authors against "libel terrorism," seeking to enforce judgments in New York State that were granted in other countries without our level of free speech protections. The law now just awaits signing by NYS's new governor, David Paterson.

One of the co-sponsors of the law, Senator Skelos, says, "The truth is a critically-important component in the War on Terror.This important new law will protect American authors and journalists who expose terrorist networks and their financiers."

I spoke briefly with Rachel Ehrenfeld tonight. She is, of course, elated at this victory, which she stubbornly waged as an individual transplanted to our shores because of her belief in America's freedoms. Ehrenfeld agrees, "this is what America is about" when individuals can have this impact. Now, there remains a long road through the courts to overturn the "libel terrorism" judgment's enforceability in our courts. Financial help is needed. Click here to help, at the American Center For Democracy. David Siegel, longtime editor of the New York State Law Digest, wrote in the March 12 New York Law Journal,

[A]ny bill that tries to address any situation as complex as Ehrenfeld is going to pose constitutional issues. If I may be allowed a flippancy, so what! It will boil down to the classic situation in which a statute toils near the border of constitutionality and leaves it to the courts to draw the line. Far worse than that would be to do nothing in the face of what seems to me an egregious effort, in a forum with libel laws offensive to our own and a dubious venue for the Ehrenfeld case to boot, to let an alleged libel victim pull off a coup in which he makes it too expensive for a New York writer to contest his foreign lawsuit.

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ELSEWHERE

More bad history from Hillary. She condemns what Japan did in response to its credit crisis of the '90s but gets ass-backwards what they did. So what she advocates for America is exactly what failed in Japan. Those who will not learn from history.... Details here

Hamas's open ethnic and religious bigotry: "In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew. "Jews are a people who cannot be trusted," Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. "They have been traitors to all agreements - go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us." At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control."

Growth is in the "red" States, not the senile Northeast: "Four Texas metropolitan areas were among the biggest population gainers as Americans continued their trend of moving to the Sun Belt in 2006 and 2007, according to Census Bureau estimates to be released Thursday. Dallas-Fort Worth added more than 162,000 residents between July 2006 and July 2007, more than any other metro area. Three other Texas areas - Houston, Austin and San Antonio - also cracked the top 10. Atlanta saw the second-largest population jump with just over 151,000 new residents. Phoenix was third with more than 132,000, and was followed by Houston, Riverside, Calif., Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas and San Antonio. Of the 50 fastest-growing metro areas, 27 were in the South and 20 were in the West. Two were in the Midwest, one - Fayetteville, Ark. - straddles the South and Midwest and none was in the Northeast."

Military families: "Military families are different from civilian families, and multi-generation military families are extraordinary in ways difficult to comprehend. I married into one, and as a civilian still find myself marveling at the sacrifices involved. My wife's borther, George Philip, is an Annapolis grad and retired after a 20 year career as a Marine Corps officer. Her dad, Col. Wilbur Helmer, retired as a colonel in the USMC,and fought in some of the toughest battles of the Pacific War. Her grandfather and great grandfather were Annapolis men and admirals. Her uncle, then-Ensign Joseph Taussig, left his leg on the Nevada. Her mom's first husband, Commander George Philip, went down with his ship at Okinawa. His cousin, John Waldron, led a famed torpedo bomber attack at the Battle of Midway. All of which is to say that they are different from you and I, and that difference should be honored by civilians again and again."

Altruistic Twist in Market Economies: "Democratic societies with market economies have a reputation as cauldrons of competition, materialism, and greed. There's another side to that coin, though. These societies also foster cooperation among strangers in order to achieve a common financial goal, say economist Benedikt Herrmann of the University of Nottingham, England, and his colleagues. In contrast, nondemocratic and other societies without market economies-marked by low civic involvement and distrust of public authorities-promote an ethic of punishing strangers who demand cooperation in a joint economic effort, Herrmann's group reports in the March 7 Science."

A Belgian Utopia: "Inadvertently, the Belgian government has proven that government is best which governs least. After spending 9 months in a political deadlock, the country found itself chugging along without so much as a hiccup. The Financial Times reports: "For all its regional rivalries, Belgium went about daily life as normal. Its famed bureaucracy chugged along under its own power. Guy Verhofstadt, the long-serving and outgoing prime minister, proved just as capable as a temporary caretaker. Social security benefits were paid and the trains ran on time. Politicians should take note. Belgium has opened the door to an enticing possibility. Non-government has attractions. Imagine living without fear of new taxes being levied or of a daily diet of attention-grabbing policies"."

Hopeless Brits still cannot run an airport terminal: "Five days after Terminal Five opened, ministers criticised anger at the chaos which has engulfed the multi-billion pound facility, while it also emerged that the turmoil had triggered a diplomatic incident. "It is extremely regrettable to say the least that passengers using T5 have had to suffer an unacceptably poor travel experience," Aviation Minister Jim Fitzpatrick told the House of Commons. British Airways - the only airline using the new terminal - cancelled another 54 flights on Monday after a nightmare weekend, while a spokesman said another 50 flights will be cancelled on Tuesday. "We continue to work towards increasing the number of services we are operating to and from Terminal 5 in the days ahead," he said. Terminal Five has been blighted by logistical troubles ever since it opened to much fanfare on Thursday, with problems compounded by a major computer glitch in the luggage handling system. The luggage backlog has so far grown to 28,000 bags, and could take up to a week to return them to owners, the minister said. Earlier BA said there were 15,000, while the BBC published photos of the bags piled on top of each other. BA chief executive Willie Walsh was forced to make his second apology in three days on Sunday, as the airline scrapped dozens of flights over the weekend."

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A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is a recent example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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