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January 13, 2010

A Foolproof Tax Plan: So Simple Even a Caveman IRS Commissioner Could do it

What
does it tell you when even the IRS commissioner doesn’t prepare his own taxes
because the code is “complex”?

By Selwyn Duke

Given that my father had been a
WWII-era prisoner of war in Germany, no one could accuse him of not doing his
part for America. Yet he was no fan of Uncle Scam. So many times he’d passionately
say, “The government is worse than the mafia!” His point was that when you pay
protection money to the local don, no one will dare vandalize your property. But
there’s no such assurance when paying tribute to little g, a fact we were
painfully aware of living in the Bronx.

There
are few bureaucracies in America that inspire hatred — at least among that
ever-diminishing class of productive citizens — like the Internal Revenue Service.
Doing its part to mitigate materialism, it liberated enough money from our
pockets in 2009 so that we had to work until April 13 for the
government. Some call this part of the “social contract” — which, incidentally,
I don’t remember ever signing. Others call it legalized theft. Yet others call
it slavery.

Read the rest here.
January 13, 2010

The Economy is so Bad That . . . .

OK, I usually don't post emails I receive, but this one is just too good. I hope you enjoy it.

The economy is so bad that:

I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail.

I ordered a burger at McDonald's and the kid behind the counter asked, "Can you afford fries with that?"

CEOs are now playing miniature golf.

(more…)
January 11, 2010

Bravo to Brit Hume: Why Faith is Not a Private Matter

By Selwyn Duke

Not too many things raise my
eyebrows in these days of through-the-looking-glass America, where I fully
expect up to be down, left to be right and right to be wrong. It’s not that I’m a pessimist — just a
realist. And this is why hearing mainstream-media
newsman Brit Hume recommend Christianity over Buddhism on FOX News Sunday,
well, made my eyebrows say bonjour to my hairline.

(more…)
January 8, 2010

Berkeley High Poised to Eliminate Science Classes Because They’re Too “White”

By Selwyn Duke

There are some things you just can’t make up — and many of them seem
to originate in Berkeley, California. Berkeley really is stranger than
fiction, and the latest example is a proposal to
eliminate science classes at the city’s high school because, get the
Digitalis, they’re too white.

Thomas Lifson at AmericanThinker.com treats the issue, writing:

The racial madness that has left-wing
America in its thrall finds its apogee in the Berkeley, California
public schools. Berkeley High School is now poised to eliminate science laboratory classes because "science labs were largely classes for white students." Eric Klein writes in the East Bay Express:
"The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved
recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of
teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the
structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial
achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the
state average while black and Latino students are doing worse."

Read the rest here.
January 7, 2010

Big Brother: France to Ban “Psychological Violence” in Marriages

He said, she said? If she said he said the wrong thing, what he said won’t mean anything.

By Selwyn Duke

We’ve all heard of hate-speech laws. Well, now France will become the
first country to enact rudeness-speech laws, making it a crime to
commit “psychological violence” within a relationship. In other words,
if Pierre and Angelique get into a shouting match and Petey happens to
drop a comment about Angie’s weight, the gendarmes could come a
knockin’. The Daily Mail reports, writing,
“The new law, which would also apply to co-habiting couples, would see
people getting criminal records for insulting their loved ones during
domestic arguments.”

I’m not sure how thoroughly this will be enforced, but couldn’t such a law place about 95 percent of all couples behind bars?

Read the rest here.
January 6, 2010

New Study Finds Spanking Is Good for Kids

By Selwyn Duke

Spanking is like milk: It does a body good — or at least a mind. No,
this isn’t the conclusion of traditionalist parenting expert Dr. James
Dobson but the finding of a study conducted by psychology professor
Marjorie Gunnoe at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
FoxNews.com reports on the story, writing,
“According to the research, children spanked up to the age of 6 were
likely as teenagers to perform better at school and were more likely to
carry out volunteer work and to want to go to college than their peers
who had never been physically disciplined.”

This may come as a relief to parents who don’t wish to spare the
rod, but have been accosted with numerous studies stating just the
opposite. But how do we reconcile these contradictory findings? Well,
perhaps the answer is that the previous scientific studies weren’t very
scientific. Fox points out that, in the past, such research was lacking
because it was difficult in more traditional times to find subjects who
had never been spanked. In contrast, Professor Gunnoe included 2600
such individuals in her study.

Read the rest here.
January 4, 2010

“Youths” in France Torch Cars to Welcome New Year

By Selwyn Duke

We really should start to
wonder if the automobile has the same status in Islamic teaching as pigs and
dogs — and as that of truthful language in journalism. In an event that was largely ignored by the
Lamestream Media, Reuters reports that “youths” in France burned, according to
its headline, “hundreds” of cars on New Year’s Eve. But when you read the very short article, you
learn that the headline certainly understates the matter. Writes Reuters, “The number of
vehicles torched was only 10 short of the record 1,147 burned this time last
year, even though the Interior Ministry mobilized 45,000 police during the
night — 10,000 more than 12 months ago. “

Read the rest here.
December 26, 2009

The Christmas Controversy: Duke Responds to Reader

Karl wrote:

Mr. Duke:

I sent your link to my list. This came in from a fellow who lives in
south Africa. He's a good man.
He gave me permission to forward to you.
If you have time to correspond with him, I would be interested in
being copied.

Sent: 12/24/2009 12:09:14 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
    Subj: Re: Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas
    Sorry, but Mr Duke is wrong on many points. It is well established (and has been for more than 150 years in a wide range of scholarship) that Christmas and Easter are "Christianized" pagan
    events (along with dozens of others, including Lent, "All Saints Day," and so on). I personally have studied this issue deeply and
   for some years and I'm satisfied with the provenance of the scholarship and analysis. I'm afraid he's a reverse-PC revisionist. This kind of thing does little for the credibility of the cause of Biblical Christianity.

(more…)
December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all a very merry and blessed Christmas.

May the Lord shower you with grace during this holy day season.
December 24, 2009

Pagan Propaganda: The Other Attack on Christmas

By Selwyn Duke

Ah, Christmastime. Manger scenes and mistletoe, trees and
tinsel, Santa and celebration, gift-giving and gratitude . . . and the ACLU
roasting traditions on an open fire. Sadly,
the last thing has become as much a seasonal expectation as the others, and the
American Communist Lawyers Union’s practice of suing our culture into oblivion
has gotten a lot of ink. Yet there is
another attack on Christmas — actually, another attack on Christianity itself —
one that could ultimately prove more damaging than the usual atheistic
assaults. And it’s embraced by
religionists themselves.

I’m
sure you’ve heard the charges. Christmas
is a “pagan holiday,” they say. It
originated with a celebration dedicated to Saturn
(the Roman god of agriculture), which, upon coming to full flower, took place
between December 17 and 23. Or perhaps
it was inspired by the commemoration of a sun-god’s birth, and here we have two
candidates: the Indo-Iranian god Mithras and the Roman god Sol. And people often seem to confuse these two
deities — and their festivals — mixing and matching them in a game of musical
myths. But it doesn’t really matter
because both Mithras’ and Sol’s mythical births, we’re told, occurred on the
same day: December 25^th.

Read the rest here.