william.scherk

And Malcolm X. Carol, I give you the shorter, comprehensible version. But, who gives a fig what politically correct Olers think? Here's someone that has her fingers on the puise of real Americans, and who will use the full power of Facebook to let the world know that the revolution in Tunisia Wisconson is not just thugs and hired goons of Mubarak Muslim Brotherhood leftists and/or Soros foreign media and their minions. Fox News: Palin: Wis. Unions Must Be 'Willing to Sacrifice

For all quiz fans (except Phil, who will win), a chance to correctly identify some of the cities that Atlas Shrugged Part 1 must be screened in: Can you name the Most Conservative US Cities? (I got 4/25 without cheating)

For all quiz fans (except Phil, who will win), a chance to correctly identify the cities that Atlas Shrugged Part 1 must not be screened in: Can you name the Most Liberal US Cities? (I got 10/25)

The newest low at SOLO has the SOLO leader cheering the death of a musician. A 'death metal' singer/songwriter who was stabbed to death in his home. Lindsay finds this to be appropriate and a tonic, and the normally only-mildly deranged Oblivia chimes in with a kookiepants coda. You see, Filth killed Filth, a death metal filth person was killed with death metal (a knife). Rejoice. Of course, the teeny roster of Team Stupid had enough power to roll over the sole person who questioned the rejoicing, and discussion then returned to its proper adjudication of who was really to blame. Kant.

I am not bigoted, I am not racist, and I am not perfect. Dude, you cannot admit to a certain amount of prejudice and racism within yourself. I consider that to be dishonest and sadly self-thwarting. You are, as you style yourself, an 'anti-Jihadist.' As an Anti-Jinadist, as a proponent of Antijihadianism, you are a failure here. You defeat yourself, and you are too stupid to understand why. Go away, please. Maybe your cult can outfit and send another Antijihadian salesman/huckster our way, one who is more gifted at persuasion.

Their willingness to dye for Allah. Badabing. -- both of the deposed leaders are said to be sick, Ben Ali in a coma in Saudia Arabia, and Mubarak off his meds, depressed and fainting at a walled compound in Sharm el-Sheikh.

What I don't get about the situation in Libya (which, besides its state media, does have, oddly, an independent site apparently run by one of Gadhafi's eighty-seven sons) is the WEAK response of the USA and the UK. What kind of deal was made with him and his regime when he renounced the export of terror and the end of chemical nuclear weapons development and all that shit? What else was on offer besides the reopening of diplomatic relationships and a promise to 'open up' Libya to Western investment? I can understand the reluctance of the US and the UK to ratchet up pressure on the King of Bahrain, given the history and the military value of that asset, and the insane regime across the strait -- Bahrain is a puny little place of half a million. Yemen, too, a snarl of tribes and barely re-constituted civil war factions and al-Qaeda yahoos and blah blah detail blah, but what is the deal with Libya? Here are a couple of snippets from ye old fair and balanced network, under the headline Libyan Unrest Highlights Uneasy U.S. Alliance. And here is news directly from Libyan sources, Libya Alyoum (via Google Translate). And from the Libyan newspaper owned by Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam (also translated). -- and one more dumb question. Why do Gadhafi (68), Ben Ali (74), and Mubarak (83) all have such fine black hair?

For those who don't quite remember Rafsanjani, he is the former President of Iran, an ayatollah and a 'reformer' in the strange bizarro-world of Iranian politics. Adam's note is correct : in addition, the first public calls for Rafsanjani's death have been heard. What is strange about this is that he changed his mind a couple of days ago and deemed opposition protests 'haram.' I can't make sense of the seeming contradiction . . . maybe it is just his time for the gallows. It is a dire, gruesome, insane situation. My heart goes out to Iranians who live under such a monstrous regime. For news of the calls for Rafsanjani's death, and for reasonably good updates on Iran see PBS's reports from its Tehran bureau. Rafsanjani:

This is more or less right. A good common starting place. This is wrong, in that the only way to know 'the people' who may be part of violent jihad is to use every means of intelligence to make a correct identification. It is hard work. Studying 'the ideology' of 'the people who you say are not your enemy' misses out essential steps in research. Marking off a vague 'the people who [you-Tony/somebody says] are not the enemy' is not good enough. A much better way is to mark off 'certain people' and judge against 'jihad and supremacist doctrines.' Judge fairly, prudently, thoughtfully, and without prejudice. That is hard work. I myself struggle with a certain reflex racism and prejudice when I read of or especially see certain Muslims. I react with a reflexive 'ugh' when I see chador, hijab, niqab. I feel prejudice rising when I see the fez, the various clerical turbans and outfits (especially Iranian mullah outfits). I feel a real revulsion when I see Nasrullah, when I saw Sheik Yassein. I feel that same impulse to loathe when I see Moqtada Sadr in his turban and outfit. It's like I hate the turban, the specialness it symbolizes, the rich particular robes that are a mark of distinction. I really can't extirpate that initial reaction. Here at home I am much more comfortable with turbans. I am prejudiced for Sikhs, for example. I trust Sikhs that wear the usual turban. I don't know why, but I am inclined to like any Sikh wearing the turban, even the old men in the park. I always choose a Sikh taxi driver. I like seeing ladies in the saris. I feel a kneejerk revulsion however with the special turbans that mark off the Sikh hierarchs/devotees. When I see the western 'caucasian' proto-Sikhs with their white robes and their distinctive turbans, I feel that prejudice. When I see the special chinbeards and white caps of a Muslim devotee, I kneejerk. Yet, I feel positive towards the outer Pakistani-style tunic/trouser outfit, and the shalwar kameez. When I see Muslim ladies/girls on the streets in the simple underchin headscarf (not the hot Iranian-Vancouver style) hijab, again I feel something atavistic, I feel sorry for them. I sometimes unbidden hear an inner voice saying, "why do you dress like a nun, you stupid bitch?" When I see ladies going about their business in the head to toe coverings and drab Canucki-standard hijab headwear, I actually feel pity tinged with a bit of contempt, and the younger they are, the more contempt I feel initially. I can't really shake that off. I am prejudiced and sometimes racist in my mind. I don't express it (save here now, openly). Richard, this is just to show that I suspect you are a human being with a certain amount of prejudice and racism within you. If you deny this, I will consider you dishonest -- or a perfect being. Sigh. That is how you lose your audience, brother. Surely you know that giving this kind of either/or choice, hinged on the person accepting your terms, is how to lose that person's sense that you are reasonable. It isn't that you lose the argument, it's that the other person's prejudice against you is confirmed. I really really really wish you could understand why that kind of tactic doesn't work. Sigh. This is how you lose, Richard. If you want allies or even fellow-travelers, or even simply someone to give you a hearing, this kind of comment is a perfect way to add hostility to the prejudice. Consider yourself a salesman for 'anti-jihad,' going door to door. When you offer your wares/tracts, and then say 'are you for freedom or not?! If you do not buy now you are bad person!' then the householder does what we all tend to do, and shuts the door in your face. No sale. It's odd that you haven't ever figured this shit out. As a salesman, you are almost completely self-thwarting.

The book referred to is called "The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party," was written by Richard Poe and David Horowitz. Horowitz funds Jihadwatch.com and edits Frontpage Mag and also runs the website referenced above, "Discover The Networks." Poe is the author of several books, including "How to Profit from the Coming Russian Boom." The 'tidbit' from the book cites a New Yorker profile by Connie Bruck, "The World According to Soros," from 1995. I will try to track it down -- it looks like a fascinating profile. The meme that '[o]ne of Baumbach's duties was to deliver deportation notices to Hungary's Jews' is certainly repeated on the internets. Is it true? Thank you, Michael, for giving a green light to chase down original sources and present what I find.

"George Soros's father asked a Christian in Hungary to adopt his son, make him his godson. And George Soros used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It's frightening. Here's a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps. You'd think there would be some remorse, as an eighty-year old, as a forty year-old man, or a twenty year-old man, when it was all over you would do some soul-searching and say 'What did I do? What did I do?" <object width='320' height='260'><param name='movie' value='http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf'></param><param name='flashvars' value='config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg2?id=201011100017'></param><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always'></param><param name='allownetworking' value='all'></param><embed src='http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' flashvars='config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg2?id=201011100017' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' width='320' height='260'></embed></object>

On the old SOLO (now RoR) site, there was extensive discussion of non-schooling and homeschooling. One of the coolest folks there and one who was determined to non-school her child was Kelly Elmore. Kelly runs a blog called (by memory) Reepicheep's Coracle, and is part of a network of home-school Objectivists sometimes featured on Diana Hsieh's site. I read at Kelly's site to see how she manages the self-directed learning style of her daughter and how she manages herself and her expectations. She also has regular readers who also home/non-school or otherwise use Objectivish principles in child-rearing -- and who exchange 'war stories' with each other. I suggest dropping in there for a gander to familiarize yourself with the kinds of things these parents do. Sometimes it seems that many Objectivists are childless, but it could be that the folks who post online are either too old or too young to discuss home-schooling except theoretically. One thing I noticed about the homeschool/non-school parents is that at some point they have to deal with a self-directed child's decision to go to 'normal school.' And of course, in most if not all states, a parent has to effectively lie or evade state intrusion to 'prove' that a child is learning, or achieving benchmarks. I have a lot of admiration for those parents who home-school, but wonder at some of the crankish 'non-schoolers' in the mix. The desire to step completely away from initiating force on the child leads to fears that "my child is not reading/achieving/progressing" and of course, learning disabilities of any kind add an extra layer of guilt. If a child turns out to be illiterate or unsocialized through amateur experimentation, what then? Kelly Elmore seems to be doing a great job, but has put aside her earlier 'purist' crankery.

"he had to go over and take the lands from the people, his Jewish friends and neighbors who were being sent to the gas chambers" <object width='320' height='260'><param name='movie' value='http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf'></param><param name='flashvars' value='config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg2?f=/static/clips/2010/11/09/11439/fnc-20101109-holocaust.flv'></param><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always'></param><param name='allownetworking' value='all'></param><embed src='http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' flashvars='config=http://mediamatters.org/embed/cfg2?f=/static/clips/2010/11/09/11439/fnc-20101109-holocaust.flv' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' width='320' height='260'></embed></object>

Correspondence March 5, 2007 War Record Martin Peretz falsely accused me of having been a "young cog in the Hitlerite wheel" ("Tyran-a-Soros," February 12). I need to set therecord straight. In 1944, when the Nazis occupied Hungary, my father arranged false identities for his family. He placed me with an official from the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture who claimed that I was his godson. In return, my father arranged a false identity for the official's Jewish wife. In my capacity as 14-year-old godson, I accompanied the official on a trip to inventory the estate of a wealthy Jewish family that had fled the country. That is the episode "60 Minutes" quizzed me about in the interview that Peretz quotes. In the same interview, I also said: "I had no role in taking away that property." The facts are documented in Michael Kaufman's biography, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire. I have also described the events at length in my own books, and my father, Tivadar Soros, gives an account of our adventures in 1944 in his book, Masquerade. George Soros

Simple yes. Simple and good, no. Good, yes. Good and simple, no. Here are two Indo-European family trees that I have found useful, followed by a link to a cool English family tree image that will not port to OL. The English one is a nice graphic that could substitute for a mongrel-dog's lineage. Quite instructive . . . (right-click to save, or contact me backstage and I can send them via email). Indo-European Family Tree One Indo-European Family Tree Two -- NB. Replaced the bozed images with links. English 'timeline'

I don't want to misunderstand you, Michael. Are you saying that my last two posts in this thread are framed the way SLOP (Lindsay Perigo's hate site) frames Middle East signs -- but in the opposite manner, as in a mirror? I want to make sure that you find my posts on Bahrain and Libya (each of which are in the news today) to be framed badly, or wrongly. It's a matter of identification, and asking questions, checking premises. It seems to me (please correct me if I get this wrong) that you firmly believe correct identification is the best heuristic -- first correctly identify what you are examining, understand something correctly before evaluating it, or put "cognitive before normative." If this is more or less your preferred approach, I think I agree. Sometimes we see folks approach things incorrectly, as you noted elsewhere, "with a notion of what they want to condemn or defend, then . . . go looking for facts or comments for corroboration." I think this is why we each share an antipathy to the way Wiig looks at the Middle East/North African situation. You have noted the times when you are in 'identification mode,' making connections, considering ideas, that you get an odd reaction: the reaction of, "if you think Side A is that way, then you are solidly on the side of Side B." So, I am puzzled by your opening. You claim one side (SOLO) frames the Middle East/North Africa incorrectly -- purely in terms of Islamist menace (which is true), and then you claim my frame is solidly on the other side. I don't understand which 'side' you think I am on, or even what you take issue with. I will take a guess, though. I think you take issue with my questioning of a Google/Soros/Leftist/Islamist/Boogeyman, and that you identify my questions with blindness, a complete evasion, an inability to assess or consider the 'open society' values derived from Popper, an inability to consider leftist forces, a blank spot in my mind with regard to the harshest aspects of political Islam. In other words, if Wiig sets the SOLO line that Islam=fascist autocracy, then I set the anti-SOLO line that Islam=democratic wonderland. That's what I get from your opening here. I invite you to consider that my questioning of the 'coalition' trope is just that, a critical examination of that trope. I invite you to not fall into the trap you have identified, of too easily seeing only opposing poles. I invite you to assess my contribution to discussion, to at least consider that I operate on good faith, with common tools of critical inquiry. If you can understand that I accept your fundamentals of 'correct identification,' and if you can accept that I operate in good faith, then we can have a productive exchange on the subject of this thread -- signs of the times in the Middle East. I will take up your questions pertaining to Bahrain and Libya in a later post.

Here's a schmozzle. A tiny island country ruled by a Sunni King, who imports Pakistanis and others to fill its government and security forces in order to keep down the majority Shia. Biggest allies, the puritanical Saudis, who like to drive over the causeway to booze it up in Manama's western-style nightlife. Tonight, the government sends in everything they have to crush dissent. Meanwhile, across the straits, Iranian nutcases, who are presently crushing their own people and calling for the death of 'traitors.' It's hard to see where the US interests lie. Oh, except that Bahrain harbours the Seventh Fleet . . . Fox News reports.

More signs of the times. Looks like a coming insurrection for Libya. That danged Google/Soros/Leftist/Islamist/Boogeyman coalition must be licking its evul NWO chops. After forty-one years of brutality, Gaddafi needs to take his billions and his little green book, and take a permanent vacation. From Al-Jazeera.

My favourite line from the excerpt is "An eighty-year old man who never once said he regretted it." Regretted it. What it? I think Michael meant to write that Soros accompanied an official from the Ministry of Agriculture (whose Jewish wife was also in hiding) who had agreed to shelter young Soros as his 'godson' while the Soros family split up and went underground in Budapest, and that it was the 'godfather' who was ordered to inventory the property of a departed Jewish family who had left their estate to the Nazi occupiers in exchange for being allowed to escape to Portugal. A little wordy, sure, but perhaps more compelling and informative. It's hard to fit in a bunch of facts in a quick post, so I am sure Michael meant to let readers know that the 'godfather' ordered by the Nazis to do the inventory actually did know Soros was Jewish -- which of course would be obvious once we have filled in a few trifling little details, like the fact that this man with a Jewish wife in hiding sheltered and protected Soros. I am sure a lot more things happened to Soros in the year he spent hiding out and dodging capture, but hey, we only have a little bit of story-telling time here. I think Michael probably meant to tell more about this year. You know, was the 'confiscation' at the Kornfeld estate a one time thing? What Kornfeld estate, you ask? Well, the empty estate containing valuable artworks, furniture and other properties that the Ministry official with the Jewish wife in hiding was ordered to inventory (did I already mention that Soros's father had arranged for the wife to be hidden? Ooops). Why on earth would anyone want to know any details, really, though? I mean, does it matter what else happened that year to young George and his family? Did I mention that the inventory took three days? Did I mention that upon his return to Budapest a schoolchum in the street outside the 'godfather's apartment recognized the little Jew, and that Soros had to be hidden elsewhere immediately? What use would be that detail if we already kinda sorta almost are sure he spent a whole year with The Nazis? Well, it could be that absent these trifling details some might think that Soros's entire year was spent heading out grinning with the Nazis every morning to confiscate items off Jews, and that Soros looked forward to it, and enjoyed posing as a Nazi himself. Absent the trifling little details, a guy on TV can say this about George Soros: "He even had to go around confiscating property of Jewish people. He actually had to endure watching people sent off to their eventual murders, watching people gathering their stuff, sending them off knowing that they were going to go to their death." Woo-hoo! I'm a fake Nazi on a Nazi job! Happy, happy, happy. Today we are confiscating property from Jews! Yeehaw! What a life. Tomorrow those Jews go to Dachau! Yippee. How do I know about Dachau in 1944? Oh, fuck off, quit wrecking my happiness. This is fun. I hope I get to go confiscate again. I could make this a regular gig. Maybe I will get to watch someone really torment some Jews! What a year! But I digress. Michael didn't have time to put up trifling details, and doesn't think the young Soros should be held responsible for having to make a horrible choice. Of course, this begs the question, what horrible choice? It. The thing. Or the awful thing he did that the TV man says he never once regretted . . . Who knows? Maybe choosing to be happy while evading Nazis and Dachau and the trains. Plausible? Nope, nobody is happy evading death. Could it be choosing to help his father? Maybe horribly choosing to go hide out as a Christian? No, that doesn't make sense -- he had no choice. I suppose he could have chosen to go up to the nearest authority and say, "Hey fuckface, I am actually a Jew. My dad is a Jew, a famous Jew, but he changed his name and got papers for himself, my mom, me, my brother, my grandma and a bunch of other people. We are in hiding. What do you think of that, huh?" We'd like to get right on that. But, where is the tape, though? We have seen fourteen seconds or so, edited, on the cut above. My second favourite part is the little white flash of an edit just after Soros says 'happiest year of my life, the German occupation.' Flash. What did he say there? . . . I would like to see that tape and figure out what was missing. Besides the unidentified 2002 tape played on the snippet above, has anyone watched the whole 1998 CBS tape? The rest of us reading here have only seen an edited transcript, as far as I know. Could there be more to the tape? Could there be two tapes? Could there be more to the story? Did you see the words on the screen? 'Soros was in charge of confiscating the land of the Jews in Hungary." I'm just asking questions here. I am not judging.

Thanks for the feedback -- I wondered if you might be reading this thread, so I posted that rambling update in hopes you were. We are generally like spectators or like fans at this distance . . . and it is hard to figure out what is happening on the field, so to speak. I get the impression that a lot of commentators or newsheads want to call the game or have already called the game . . .

I would say that have figured out the first fifteen steps. Revise the Constitution Articles 76, 77, 88, 93, 181, and 189. Annul Article 179. End administrative practices that harry independent media. End the dominance of the NDP over the judiciary. End NDP dominance of state media. End emergency detentions. End emergency courts. End torture in military and civil prisons. End harassment of civil society organs. Release political prisoners. David, these things have been figured out. What remains to be seen is how and when and in what order the Supreme Military Council lives up to its word to implement every single one of these steps. An update on the order of the Military changes. Aparrently, the particular revisions to the Constitution I noted above are currently being drafted by a committee of jurists (see report from Egyptian media below). Emergency law in place, though no arrests or detentions or disappearances have been reported since the coup. Numerous reports have appeared in Egyptian media calling on the state to name and locate all those detained during but not released since the unrest -- hard to say if this situation will move quickly. The fake 'reformist' cabinet is still in charge, but has vacancies; at the same time assets have been seized, and daily calls for transparency in official corruption proceedings are being made. From a distance, it looks like a lid has been lifted, and that intense scrutiny is underway by civil organizatons, the press -- everyone with a mouth has opened it and found an outlet for their opinions, without censors fretting over the details. The security forces of the Interior ministry have reported huge gaps in their membership, and I have seen two reports that quote cops saying they were ordered to repress during the uprising, that official sanction had been given for shakedowns/baksheesh. They have demonstrated for pay raises! Independent media are still subject to the law/practices of the old regime, but again, it looks like the lid has been lifted -- there have been no reports of any pressure/detentions/arrests, etcetera. It looks like there are current 'mini-revolutions' in several of the State Media outlets, as with newspapers whose editors are government appointed. It looks like a ramshackle, rambunctious period of reckoning is ahead now that repression has been lifted de facto if not de jure. I am cynical with a drop of optimism for the next few months. Army-appointed constitutional committee fails to please everyone

Rumours grow where rumours grow -- in the pundit class and its audience, operatives, poltical junkies. What else can you do in between election cycles but speculate and trade rumours and indulge in wishful thinking? You need something to yap about. Clinton may have put the kibosh on the rumours back in December (did she leave the door open a wee crack?), but probably only her death by guillotine on national TV would stop the speculation. Clinton might run in the primaries. God might reinhabit J Neil Schulman. Thor might rise from the dead to lead us to Valhalla. All outside possibilities. Meanwhile, in Montana, the Flathead Beacon reports on a bill introduced that will bar Obama from election since he is not 'natural born.' The door to a Clinton run swings open.

One of the first things I ever read about Soros was published in 2003 in Reason. Beck was still in rehab, Michael was still in Brazil, Adam was still in the penitentiary, and Carol Jane and I were still married and raising rabbits for food. It was after Soros' interview with 60 Minutes -- in which he talked frankly about his experience as a teenage 'hidden Jew' in Budapest -- but before Ann Coulter called him a Nazi collaborator. It's a good read, even if you hate Soros with every last fibre of your being. It puts some of the bizarre takes on Soros in perspective, whether the bizarreries emerge from the left (He's a capitalist arch-fiend), the right (He's a communist), the Iranians (He's a stooge of the CIA Imperialists), the non-Objectivish also-rans (He sold Jews to the Nazis), the Belorussians (He is an agent of the USA), or the Malaysians (He's a Zionist Moneylending Criminal). If you would like a reasonably reasonable take on Soros, and the wackiness and rage Soros garnered before he turned into The Boogeyman, have a gander at the Reason article. I know reason is no substitute for addled speculation or frenzied denunciations, but it can still be fun to take a break from the Outer Limits, put a saddle on the hobby horse, and pause before dashing off in all directions. If you are the kind of person who can draw a straight line from The Rothschilds to The Progressives to Timothy McVeigh without spilling your FourLoko, the Reason article is not recommended. You will have to buy a new box of crayons. Here's a sample: _____________________________________ <h2><a href='http://reason.com/archives/2003/12/08/open-season-on-open-society'>Open Season on 'Open Society'</a></h2> <h3>Why an anti-communist Holocaust survivor is being demonized as a Socialist, Self-hating Jew</h3> <p class="byline"><span><a href="http://reason.com/people/matt-welch" rel="author">Matt Welch</a> | December 8, 2003</span></p> <p>George Soros has a long and storied track record of being all villains to all people. Nobody that rich, and that meddlesome in international affairs—through his massive, market-influencing hedge-fund bets against national currencies, or via his multi-billion dollar "<a href="http://www.soros.org/">Open Society</a>" philanthropy in 50-plus countries—could avoid being fitted for devil's horns on a daily basis.</p> <p>In the past 10 days alone the <a href="http://www.soros.org/about/bios/a_soros/">Karl Popper-influenced</a>, Hungarian-born American citizen has been accused by Russian Foreign Minister <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/12/08/019.html">Igor Ivanov</a> and deposed Georgian President <a href="http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2003/12/01/51582.html">Eduard Shevardnadze</a> of directly engineering Georgia's "Rose Revolution"; <a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2003/12/02/putting_tons_of_money_where_his_mouth_is?mode"> slammed</a> by bilious <em>Boston Globe</em> columnist Alex Beam as a "greater threat to democracy" than even (gasp!) Rupert Murdoch (in part, because of Soros' <a href="http://www.nationalfamilies.org/guide/gsoros.html">support</a> for medical-marijuana ballot initiatives in several states); cited in press reports as the main reason for drops in the <a href="http://www.thisismoney.com/20031201/nm71234.html">U.S. dollar</a> and <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/economy/indicators/0,2172,70165,00.html">South African rand</a>; and <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/levich12062003.html">accused</a> by CounterPunch's Jacob Levich as willingly allowing his overseas NGOs to be "openly integrated into Washington's overall strategy for consolidating global supremacy."</p> <p>The latter claim in particular would seem oddly dissonant behavior from a man who has just written a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586482173/reasonmagazineA/"> <em>The Bubble of American Supremacy</em></a> (an <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/12/soros.htm">excerpt</a> from which can be found in the December <em>Atlantic Monthly</em>), and who has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24179-2003Nov10?language"> donated</a> $15 million so far in a <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl">well publicized</a> effort to effect "regime change" on President George Bush, a man he calls "a danger to the world." But then, rationality has never been the high point of Soros' many detractors.</p> <p>Until very recently, you could place most of Soros' fiercest critics in categories marked "paranoid" and "anti-democratic." In 1990s Central Europe, where he and his various organizations were ubiquitous presences (at least in the cosmopolitan capital cities), reaction to Soros was a useful if crude indicator of a politician's basic orientation. Vaclav Klaus' messy <a href="http://www.amcham.hu/BusinessHungary/15-10/articles/15-10_26.asp">early-1990s rejection</a> of Soros' plans to locate his independent Central European University in Prague was an important early omen that the West's favorite post-communist free marketeer would have an icy attitude toward <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl">Burke's "Little Platoons"</a>, should said platoons look large enough to threaten Klaus' own hold on power. Open Society Institutes were <a href="http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/10/F.RU.991020134118.html">forcibly shut down</a> by the thuggish governments of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Belarus, and singled out for abuse by brutish former Slovakia Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar.</p> <p>But now, Slavic autocrats have been joined in red-faced George-bashing by two new overlapping groups: American conservatives, and hawkish friends of Israel. Ever since Soros began ladling out millions to the dump-Bush campaign, while larding his anti-administration rhetoric with inflammatory comparisons to Nazi Germany and Yasser Arafat, it has been open season on Open Society. Thus we now have the spectacle of one of the world's most active and influential anti-communists (not to mention one of its most successful capitalists) being tarred as a particularly dangerous friend of Marx and Lenin.</p>

Without checking the 'stuff,' I won't venture an opinion about Soros being 'on record' seeking to 'take down the USA.' I will continue to fact-check these claims: that Soros helped fund the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in the Czech Republic, the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine, the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia --and that he also helped to engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia and Yugoslavia. I may report on what I find later, but I doubt there will be any interest. Just wondering -- has anyone reading this thread ever read any of Soros's books? I am starting his 'Underwriting Democracy: Encouraging Free Enterpirse And Democratic Reform Among the Soviets and in Eastern Europe.'

I will post a round-up of stories later today on the 'Signs' thread, but at the risk of further hijacking Michal's Soros/Leftist/Islamist Coalition thread, here's a headline and snippet from Britain's Independent (such a crazy juxtaposition of Iranian parliamentarians demanding the noose for 'democrats' and the Open Society that Soros claims to work for. Some revolutions eat their children; some do not. How to tell the difference?): Iran: MPs demand execution of opposition leaders