Logical Meme

I’m done posting for a while. I may or may not continue with this blog.

There’s only so many times one can fritter away hours putting together yet one more post about NYT bias, Islamofascism, the ravages of political correctness, the scourge of relativism, the psychology of liberalism, and our collective march towards Western suicide.

By the time I get home from my hellish job, I’m spent. In the few hours a day of leisure time I actually have, I can’t read the books I want to read if I’m spending my time posting blog entries.

Plus, other bigger bloggers (LGF; American Renaissance; Lawrence Auster; Arts & Letters Daily; Bookforum; etc.) cover the same territory I do but with much more aplomb.

While I’m not saying ‘never’, for the time being I need an extended break.

Oh, man. The late night comedians are going to have a field day with this (”Group renames asteroid for George Takei“).

NEW YORK - George Takei already had a place among the stars in the minds of millions of “Star Trek” fans. Now he’s taking up permanent residence as the namesake of the asteroid formerly known as the 1994 GT9.

The asteroid, located between Mars and Jupiter, has been renamed 7307 Takei in honor of the actor, who is best known for his role as Hikaru Sulu in the original “Star Trek” series.

Takei, you see, is outspokenly gay.

Which means that at least one late night comedian tonight will broach this story with a punchline involving ‘Uranus.’

There’s been an interesting, and quite revealing, ‘dust up’ exchange in the LAT about Hollywood and the culture wars. Yesterday’s installment is “What are ‘Hollywood values’?“.

On the Left is David Ehrenstein (who feels the need to mention he’s gay and black in every article he writes); on the Right is Andrew Breitbart, whose writing talents I wasn’t aware of.

In yesterday’s exchange, Ehrenstein juggles the tropes, managing to (like homo pomos have a seemingly hardwired compunction to do) use a lot of words yet say absolutely nothing substantive.

Breitbart’s reply is so good I’ve posted it in full:

“I haven’t the slightest doubt that Andrew feels Hollywood should be working 24/7 on stemming the Islamic tide threatening to overwhelm all that’s white and Christian…”

David, we’ve never met, yet in yesterday’s post you painted me as a white supremacist. And now I’m supposed to chat up Barbra Streisand’s tax returns and play connect the dots with a whirligig of old-time film titles?

Perhaps a reread of my last post to you is in order: I praise not “The Birth of a Nation” but “Supberbad.”

I know your biracial homosexual bio perfecta trumps my humble multiculti checklist, but I did have a bitchin’ Bar Mitzvah; I adore my Latina sister (we’re both adopted); and I chose to go to college in New Orleans because I really liked Lisa Bonet in “Angel Heart.” Isn’t that enough not to have an embroidered scarlet KKK on my hooded sweatshirt?

It’s not just you, David.

I think you represent the majority in Hollywood. The type that green-lighted a troika of Matthew Shepherd movies after he was senselessly killed because it affirmed their gut feeling that a gay young man living in backward America is destined for death at the hands of hateful ultraconservatives. A street in West Hollywood still stands in his name despite ABC News reporting the story false: He was killed by crazed meth addicts for drugs and money — not because he was gay. Isn’t that tragic enough?

Yet Shepherd is still the icon of gay victims’ rights, and the mistaken story of his “fate” soon thereafter befell Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in “Brokeback Mountain.” The Oscar statuette stands as the exclamation point. Victimhood wears like a cashmere sweater in Hollywood, and the mistaken story line of red-state Americans as murderous homophobes is now a timeless artistic truth.

Yet no L.A.-based gay rights group or concerned gay actor readies a film illustrating exactly how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his 70-million strong country “gay free.” In the studio system these days, only white, conservative Christian Americans get that treatment. Maybe Tony Kushner doesn’t want the headache of a fatwa.

Yet despite all of this, you really got me thinking. About race, sexual identity, victim politics, Hollywood values — and even time travel. If I could go back in time, I would go back to your childhood to beat up the boys who beat you up as you started grappling with your homosexuality. I’d go into your past to erase the “hate crimes” that now cause you to blame political conservatism for your deepest wounds. I want to breach the time/space continuum to find out what those young hoodlums were thinking when they went after you. My suspicion is none of them had ever read F.A. Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom,” (no, that’s not Salma’s father) or Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind.”

Let’s get Hollywood to option the rights to the story: It’s got it all — race, violence, sexual identity, science-fiction and a character Ang Lee could really sink his teeth into. Think “Boys Don’t Cry” meets “Back to the Future.” And at the end of the film, it’s 2014 and I see that you and your partner have been nabbed by Chomsky-quoting al Qaeda fanatics who are getting ready to behead you in an abandoned auto factory in Michigan for the sin of brunching in Dearborn.

But the moment before they chop your heads off — in the nick of time (just like in the Republicans’ favorite show, “24,” which we are grateful you guys allowed us to have) — the good guys, in this case the U.S. Marines, bust through the doors to save you both. At this point, I will have drafted a powerful soliloquy for your character. It’ll be a cinematic epiphany in which you show remorse for tilting at white, straight and conservative windmills — to which you and Hollywood almost exclusively blame for all that is wrong in the world.

We can run it through your agent or mine.

Damn, that’s some fine writing.

In Tikkun there’s an interesting article on “Neuroscience and Fundamentalism” (the fundamentalisms in question being both religious and secular):

The evolving and growing complexity of the human brain allowed our ancestors the ability to question, wonder, and consider new possibilities—to be creative. Life altering advances were the result. Is unconditional adherence to dogma (whether religious or secular) at odds with this evolved capability and our full potential as creative beings?

On a link to the official Board of Supervisors of City and County of San Francisco website (link via Drudge) is the upcoming agenda of proposed ordinances. Among things dealing with Traffic Code, budget, and finance issues is this one:

“Resolution condemning defamatory language used by radio personality Michael Savage against the immigrant community.”

The PDF of this proposed resolution has even better details. The part about the students’ fast at KNEW (they’re trying to get Savage fired), and Savage’s rhetorical response (quoted in the document) is hilarious.

The SF supervisors whose names are attached to this resolution are “Sandoval” and “Ammiano”.

Imagine that.

Why was the current #1 most-viewed article at NYT.com yesterday Tom Friedman’s “9/11 Is Over“? Because the op-ed’s title alone is sure to draw the attention of every liberal in the country.

Friedman opens his op-ed thusly:

Not long ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran a fake news story that began like this:

“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.”

Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true…

You get the idea.

Further down, there’s this gem:

You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty.

Close down Guantánamo Bay (because Muslims & leftists don’t like it) and replace it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. What great ‘progressive’ ideas!

Why stop there? There are plenty of other American institutions that others in the world have negative and/or erroneous perceptions of. Let’s get rid of those too!

Ever the globalization cheerleader, Friedman argues our too restrictive (ahem) immigration and worker visa laws are unreasonable and make victims of the likes of Microsoft.

Last July, Microsoft, fed up with American restrictions on importing brain talent, opened its newest software development center in Vancouver. That’s in Canada, folks. If Disney World can remain an open, welcoming place, with increased but invisible security, why can’t America?

Heck, why don’t we just eliminate national borders en toto? It would certainly lead to more ‘economic efficiency’ (from some distant, alien point of view).

On today’s ‘Letters to the Editor‘ page, all six letters are supportive of Friedman’s 9/11 column (with one mildy critical only of his wacky Cuba sidenote.)

Imagine that.

Oh, Friedman is a columnist employed by the NYT too.

Apparently, there were zero letters to the NYT critical of Friedman’s column.

Zero.

From the progressive county of Los Angeles (link via Drudge):

LA County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich has announced that a new report shows illegal aliens and their families in Los Angeles County collected over $35 million in welfare and food stamp allocations in July.

In the report, illegals are said to have collected nearly $20 million in welfare assistance for July 2007 and an additional $15 million in monthly food stamp allocations for an estimated annual cost of $440 million.

“Illegal immigration continues to have a devastating impact on Los Angeles County taxpayers,”said Antonovich. “In addition to $220 million for public safety and $400 million for healthcare, the $440 million in welfare allocations bring the total cost to County taxpayers that exceeds $1 billion a year — this does not include the skyrocketing cost of education.”

¡Sí, Se Puede!

This from Mugabe’s paradise (hat tip: Vin B):

Ringed by a clutch of Zimbabwean soldiers clicking automatic weapons, Charles Lock handed over the keys to his farm and drove off his land for the last time.

Scores of white farmers, the last survivors of President Robert Mugabe’s land grab, and thousands of their black workers are going through similar agonies.

They now face the final deadline. As from today, any white farmer still on his land will be deemed to be trespassing on state property…

Before the onset of the land grab, Zimbabwe had about 4,000 white farmers. Perhaps a few hundred are left — and the great majority are only able to cling to portions of their land…

Here’s the punchline:

The United Nations says that about four million Zimbabweans will need food aid next year. Until the land grab, Zimbabwe exported food.

Dwell on that for a moment.

Why the diametrically different situation today? Because white farmers were productive, made wise use of the land, etc. Zimbabwe went from a net exporter of food (when evil whites contributed to the agricultural economy) to one of the most starvation-plagued countries on the planet.

Many of the white families in places like Zimbabwe originally settled there over 400 years ago, which is longer than the original white settlers in Jamestown and the new colonies in what was to become the United States.

Think about that too.

Yet another inch of a nation’s sovereignty is sacrificed to the altar of libertarian philosophy:

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - More than 100,000 Costa Ricans, some dressed as skeletons, protested a U.S. trade pact on Sunday they say will flood their country with cheap farm goods and cause job losses.

Chanting “No to the free-trade pact!” and “Costa Rica is not for sale!” demonstrators filled one of San Jose’s main boulevards to show their opposition against the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

“The trade deal is putting at risk our workers’ rights. We need an accord with the United States, but not this way,” said Juan Chacon, a 50-year-old computer technician…

Costa Rica is the only country that has not ratified CAFTA — which includes Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic — and will be the only nation to decide the issue by referendum.

The October 7 referendum has split the nation, with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and some businesses saying CAFTA will bring investment and jobs. Opponents say it will mean a flood of cheap rice and dairy imports and limit the country’s sovereignty by taking investment disputes to international arbitration.

Read Ch. 4 of Roger Scruton’s “The West and The Rest” to see why the globalization-for-globalization’s-sake position overlooks the many culturally destructive forces of multinational economics.

The West is going through a profound identity crisis. Among the individual western nations, and within the context of mass immigration from third world nations (particularly when said immigrants are you know what), this question, and the unfolding public debates surrounding this question, is remarkably similar. In a cover story, Prospect broaches the subject:

In July, Gordon Brown published a green paper called “The Governance of Britain.” The final section said that we need to be clearer about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship and what it means to be British. It proposed “to work with the public to develop a British statement of values.” We asked 50 writers and intellectuals to give us their thoughts on this statement and what should inform it…

No doubt moved by the media’s portrayal of them as victims, lots of folks (probably white liberals with expendable income) have donated money to ‘civil rights’ icons the “Jena 6”. Below is a photo that “Jena 6” defendant Robert Bailey posted of himself (with $100 bills in his mouth) on his MySpace page last week.

Several pictures were placed on the site with the money, included one photo of Theodare Shaw, another Jena Six defendant, with Bailey and money. The pictures were removed by the end of the week. An unknown number of people have donated to the Jena Six defense fund and many are now calling upon some group to audit the contributions in light of the photos posted on the Internet.

And you can take that to the bank.

“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”

– From “The Sheltering Sky” (1949) by Paul Bowles.

This would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic:

Former “Evening News” Dan Rather choked back tears on several occasions today when discussing his decision to file a lawsuit against CBS and he left many audience members with a sense that he may call President George W. Bush as a witness should the lawsuit proceed to trial (and  Rather said he hoped it would)…

In the lawsuit, Rather claims he was unjustifiably squeezed out of CBS by network executives following a 2004 story about President Bush’s service record in the Texas Air National Guard. After evidence emerged that the story’s primary documents were possibly faked or forged, Rather stated on air that “if I knew then what I know now, I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.”

Joynt asked Rather if he believes the president hates him, and Rather responded by saying that “hate is a strong word.” Then, he began to well up. “You’ve never met anybody who had more respect for the presidency than I do,” said Rather, choking back tears. He stood by his 2004 story, saying “we got the truth, but we left ourselves vulnerable.”

Perhaps the strongest evidence yet of just how mentally unstable Rather appears to be:

Rather also grew emotional when he revealed that many of his family members and “people who love me very dearly” had urged him not to file the lawsuit. He ultimately rejected their advice, comparing it to difficult decisions he’s made in the past about traveling to travel to war zones over his family’s objections.

Read between the lines of that.

From yesterday:

NEW YORK — A St. John’s University student with a suspected history of mental problems was arrested on the Queens campus with a rifle and a Halloween style mask, possibly of President Bush, police said Wednesday…

Anyone wanna bet this guy is also a Leftie (a ‘mental problem’ to be sure, but of a different kind), hence the Bush mask?

Campus security moved in and quickly disarmed the student, Omesh Hiraman, 22, who had been carrying the weapon in a bag, according to a posting on the St. John’s University website. Sources say the weapon appeared to a single shot, old style rifle. One law enforcement official said it looked a musket. Another said while the weapon appeared old, it was capable of firing a .50 caliber round.

Police were searching the student’s dormitory and investigating whether he might have stopped taking his medications, according to a law enforcement source. It’s believed the student, who is of Guyanese descent, was acting alone, despite early reports of a possible accomplice, sources said.

Fewer than 30 black women hold full-time teaching jobs in philosophy!

Omigod!

That this is a subject of ‘concern’ is yet one more instance of the insanity of the political correctness that guides affirmative action and all sorts of other liberal hand-wringing.

I’ve always found bizarre the premise that the demographic % breakdown of any profession (e.g., lawyers, doctors, plumbers, schoolteachers, physicists, figure skaters, etc.) ought to correspond to the demographic % breakdown of the geographical area (or the entire country as a whole) or else there is ‘discrimination’.

How does the West commit suicide? Let us count the ways. Here is but one suggestion from Britain’s infamous ‘Commission for Equalities and Human Rights’, a PC epicenter albeit one that is an actual governmental agency with real powers (link via LGF).

Parts of British history need to be rewritten to emphasise the roles played by other races and religions like Muslims, a prominent race relations campaigner has said.

Trevor Philips, the chairman of the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, said the history of Britain did not properly reflect the contribution of other cultures.

Rewriting the country’s history would demonstrate to Britons in the 21st century how other groups apart from Anglo Saxons shaped the nation.

He told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference: “We may need to revisit our national story - we want to rewrite that story to tell the whole story.”

The rewriting should start with the story of how the English fleet led by Sir Francis Drake fought off the Spanish Armada in 1588, he said.

The important role played by the Muslim Turks, who delayed the sailing of the Spanish fleet so that the English ships were better prepared, had been airbrushed out of the story however.

Mr Phillips said: “When we talk about the Armada, it was the Turks who saved us because they held up the Armada after a request from Elizabeth I.

“Let’s rewrite that, so we have an ideal that brings us together so that it can bind us together in stormy times ahead in the next century.”

Mr Phillips, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, declined to offer any other examples of parts of British history that should be rewritten.

He also said that he supported a campaign by the musician Billy Bragg for a new written constitution to define what it means to be British in the 21st century.

“We have to have an expression that is native and right for us,” he said.

“We have to have a more explicit set of understandings under which we can all live together.”

This is like something out of Orwell’s imagination.

Meanwhile, from the Continent That Time Forgot, the BBC reports (link via AmRen):

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected “in order to finish quickly the African people”.

Repeat after me: The idea that Africa is filled with superstitious and conspiracy-theory-prone irrationality is a racist stereotype…

From IMDB:

Pals Pamela Anderson and Denise Richards are considering a $1 million offer to pose nude together in an upcoming issue of Playboy magazine. Both blondes have disrobed for the men’s magazine in the past, and now Playboy boss Hugh Hefner wants the actresses to team up for a spread in the January 2008 issue of the publication. A source tells the Globe, “Neither Pam nor Denise has committed yet, but they’re seriously considering it.” Anderson has appeared nude in Playboy a record 12 times, while Richards stripped for the December 2004 issue. The pair became firm friends when they shot mob comedy Blonde & Blonder in Canada last year.

This is why America is the greatest country in the world, and Hugh Hefner one of its greatest patriots.

As I’ve noted before, Gordon Ramsay (as seen through the BBC “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”, not the American version on Fox) is a great primer in effective management techniques. A BBC piece from a while back asked:

Gordon Ramsay didn’t get three Michelin stars just by swearing at his staff. What’s so successful about his management style?

He’s famous for his four-letter outbursts and taking a tough approach to managing staff.

But for all his profanities, Gordon Ramsay seems to bring out the best in those who work for him.

He is not without his critics, but despite his reputation for hot-headedness he has held on to 80% of his staff for the past 10 years.

Here are some other good insights (as a means to apply Ramsay’s lessons to one own’s management style) by others including a professor of Management:

Ramsay excels at giving his staff a sense of the story in which they play an important part, says Professor Kim James from the Cranfield School of Management.

“He creates a drama to identify with, convincing people to tie their future to that idea, and make sure they have opportunities to perform to the highest standard. The ultimate test of a leader is their legacy and Ramsay’s greatest gift to the restaurants he turns around may be to leave them capable of good theatre when he is no longer the star.”

You don’t achieve Ramsay’s level of success by worrying if your staff like you or not. But he believes that showing staff who is boss is the way to get their respect…

Ramsay is tough, but his style is also about coaching and encouraging the best from his staff. They are all vital ingredients to be a good boss, says Mike Petrook, of the Chartered Managers Institute.

“You don’t have to be everyone’s friend but you do have to be a friendly boss,” he says. “The best managers have to have the ability to lead but also talk to staff and aren’t standoffish.”..

Ramsay always has a well-defined vision - delicious, simple food. He hates pretension and makes sure the whole team understands what his vision is so they are all working towards the same goal.

Ramsay cuts away the unnecessary frills, says Professor James.

“He looks at each restaurant in isolation. He goes back to the basics and researches customers and competitors and, crucially, assess the capabilities of staff to produce excellent cuisine. He identifies a successful formula for each individual restaurant.”

Ramsay identifies what each business can do to the highest possible standard, says Professor James.

“There is no standard Gordon Ramsay formula that he applies to all. He identifies what it can do to the highest possible standard and works from there.”…

His comments might be peppered with swear words, but Ramsay communicates clearly and continuously with staff. He lets them know exactly what he expects and provides them with both positive and negative feedback. The result is a highly-motivated workforce…

You have to look beyond the swearing, says Professor James.

“He offers no bland vision statements but tries to inspire. He is generous in bringing people on and instructs the inexperienced.”

Some reader comments to the article note:

• Watching Gordon Ramsey on TV two things become abundantly clear. The first is that he expects the highest standards from his staff, the second is that he is prepared to put in the time to help them achieve those standards. The overall effect is a completely inspiring boss. If I was a chef, I’d walk over hot coals to work for him.

• What Gordon does is no different from any other business troubleshooter. It is easier to look from outside the box and identify the problem areas. Troubleshooters have been doing this for years. You have to have knowledge of the industry, marketplace and product of the business.

• I have noticed how he takes time to look at individuals and their issues and focuses them on the key task of delivering a great product (food) to the customer. Not all situations are like a restaurant kitchen but I am sure we can all learn from seeing how motivated people make for an effective team.

• For all the criticism that Gordon Ramsay receives, he’s one of the best people managers ever seen on TV. He knows how to empower his team and brings out the best in them through passion and desire to be the best.

• The one thing this article doesn’t mention is Ramsay’s approach of not being over-effusive in his praise. By only dishing out the compliments when it’s appropriate (but making sure he does compliment people when they do deserve it), and keeping the compliments proportionate to the achievements, he creates an environment in which his praise is the most valuable coin for his staff, and when they get it they know they deserve it. Of course, the converse is also true. It all makes for self-aware and keenly motivated workers.

‘Progressives’ are looking to gentrifify Amsterdam. How swell.

If the city authorities have their way, the widely sold tourist T-shirt proclaiming that “Good boys go to heaven and bad boys go to Amsterdam” will become a relic. Indeed, those bad boys may soon struggle to find their way to the city’s fabled red-light district of “storefront” prostitution. Last week one of the main entrepreneurs in the city’s perfectly legal sex industry cashed in, selling his properties in the district. The buyer, for $35 million, was a not-for-profit organization backed by the city of Amsterdam. The plan is to convert the buildings in which prostitutes pose in the windows into apartments and more conventional commercial space.

From a strictly entrepreneurial point of view, this is not a good investment. The buyers reckon that the value of the properties may fall by $21 million, a deficit that the municipality would have to fund. But for the city elders, that may be the price of transforming the old city center, which they say has become clogged with undesired and outright criminal activities. While prostitution is legal in the Netherlands, the city has found the trade is a magnet for female trafficking and money laundering. “Our aim is to push back criminal activity, to gain more control over the area”, mayor Job Cohen commented.

Maybe they can then close down the legendary Dutch coffeehouses to make way for f**cking Starbucks.

Oops, I spoke too soon.

Nor is the sex-industry Mayor Cohen’s only target: He also sees the buyout as a chance to begin clearing out the cannabis-selling coffee shops and what he calls “bad horeca” (the hospitality industry term meaning hotel-restaurant-cafe). The move underpins the strategy of the leftist city government to curb what they see as the excessive proliferation of commerce based on sex, drugs and alcohol, for all of which the city earned its global reputation. While they do not plan to stop the sale of undesirable goods and services altogether, they say it has gotten out of hand.

City Hall’s drive to clean up the streets has been going on for some time, but last week’s property buy-out marks a major escalation - it will eliminate one third of the prostitution rooms in the red light district, and one fifth of those citywide. Nor is this likely to be the last buyout.

What a drag.

Amsterdam was one of the funnest cities I’ve ever been to.

Western cities are all beginning to look exactly the same.

Alas, Britain – the Britain one may still imagine when one thinks of Britain (e.g., white, Anglo Brits… in short, British people) – is in its death knell.

Demographics is destiny.

Cal Thomas writes:

The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain. This number does not include the people who broke the law to get there. Britain’s Office of National Statistics reports that middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that have become home to large numbers of immigrants, thereby altering the character of neighborhoods.

(-200,000) + 574,000 = a difference of 774,000.

Dwell on the math of that one. And that’s just in one year.

Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: life in Britain has become unbearable. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness. Officials say they do not wish to “offend” others.

Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are about to be granted “amnesty” to stay in Britain. The government’s approach is similar to that pursued by President Bush, who failed to win congressional approval for his amnesty plan. Migrants will be granted immediate access to many benefits, including top priority for council housing. Taxpayers will foot the bill.

The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, called the policy a “stealth amnesty.” Again, in a comment reminiscent of the debate in America, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: “This is yet another example of the Alice in Wonderland world of human rights. If you break British law for long enough, you acquire rights, not penalties.”

From the latest Star Magazine, we learn that Tom Cruise is preparing for impending violence that intergalactic warlord Xenu will wreak upon the planet when he returns:

Devout Scientologist Tom Cruise plans to build a $10 million bunker under his Telluride, Colorado, mansion, a source tells Star! Equipped with a high tech air-purifying system, “it’s a self-contained underground system where up to 10 people can survive for years.” Apparently, Scientologists believe that the evil deposed galactic ruler Xenu is set to attack Earth, and they’ll need a safe place to survive.

It’s not just Tom Cruise who’s nuts.

There are many, many other Scientologists who believe this insanity as well.

A theme I’ve been keenly attuned to in the past 6 months is cliché, but all too true: it’s not about the money. If I were offered a promotion in the dept I work in (at a Fortune 50 company), with an extra $30,000 of salary added, I can honestly say I would not want it.

I wouldn’t want the additional stress, as I know (for reasons I won’t get into) that with such a promotion would come a large amount of stress.

It’s not about the money. Recent work in economics has ascertained that, for Americans, after $40,000/yr in pay, the marginal ‘happiness’ of extra pay drops off significantly. IOW, at $40k we have our material needs largely met. Extra pay after this point is largely associated with lifestyle enhancement, not food, clothing, and shelter.

With this in mind, here’s a brief review of a new book entitled “How Starbucks Saved My Life - A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else” by Michael Gates Gill. (Hat tip: Rich H.)

At 63, the author lost all that he thought was important to him - family, job and health. A divorce, a downsizing and a brain tumor changed his life forever. His story of what happened next explores his past, present and future with candor. Mr. Gill reveals “Aha Moments” and pulls no punches about his missteps.

This Yale graduate and former creative director of one of the world’s largest ad agencies now serves lattes at a Starbucks in NYC. He loves his job and his new life. How did he get there? Coincidence met opportunity when he was at the Starbucks sipping a latte and thinking about his change of fortune. The young woman at the next table said: “Would you like a job?” The store was in the middle of a hiring event; the woman was a store manager. He writes: “For one of the few times in my life, I could not think of a polite lie or any answer but the truth. ‘Yes’, I said without thinking. ‘I would like a job.” It turned out the manager was just joking with this guy in the Brooks Brothers suit - but not for long.

The former advertising executive became a barista - initially, in his eyes “a waiter with a fancy title”. His view changed quickly. His training coach taught training by sharing. They worked side-by-side for a few weeks. He got stern lessons in customer service when he denied a homeless person the use of the bathroom. The manager came down hard: “EVERYONE is a guest.” He also learned that being polite wasn’t the same as treating people with respect: Coworkers were partners; just being polite wasn’t showing them that you appreciated them for the work they did and their partnership.

Despite becoming an author, Mr. Gill still works full-time at Starbucks. It’s not that he can’t afford to give up the job; he doesn’t want to. Mr. Gill isn’t living life like everyone else - he lives life to its fullest every day.