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[Music clip: From Haydn's Derbyshire March No. 2, organ version]
01 — Intro. Radio Derb is on the Air! This is your weekly host, John Derbyshire. That's "weekly" with a double "e," not an "e-a"; though I'll admit to feeling a bit weakly at the knees about not having even started my taxes yet. Well, let's look on the bright side. Spring is just around the corner; the lilac will soon be in bloom; and if Hillary's numbers keep slipping the way they have been this past few days we may yet be spared another Clinton Presidency. One was enough. In fact, one was too many. Okay — on with the show! |
| 02 — Corn-stamper Coulter. Ann Coulter put her foot in her mouth (which was
quite a long way for it to travel) at CPAC by using the f-word — no, not that f-word, the other one, the one that's an anagram of
"GOGFAT" — in connection with John Edwards.
Ann recovered wonderfully from this faux pas by the spirited vigor with which she totally refused to apologize, and called all the conservatives who criticized her a bunch of weenies. As George Orwell put it: It's honourable, even if it's barmy, And I must say, no offense to anyone at all, but I think I know where Ann's coming from on this. Ally McBeal fans: Do you remember the James LeGros character? The one who dated the transsexual? Is James LeGros a dead ringer for John Edwards, or what? I bet that's what got us on the wrong track. Anyway, count me a Coulter fan. My only beef with Ann is this boast of hers that, quote, "I've dated everybody on the right." Not true, honey. You never dated me. |
| 03 — Is Rudy mean enough? CPAC came and went and Rudy got a
pretty good reception, I hear. Then some bad family stuff came out. Rudy's son Andrew doesn't get on with the new wife, didn't care for how Rudy
treated his mom, and so on.
You know what? This actually makes me warm to Rudy even more. If I look at my own reasons for favoring the guy, part of it is my perception that Rudy is one mean, nasty son of a bitch. I like that in a President. After all, it's highly unlikely that the meanness and nastiness will be directed at me personally. It will, one hopes, be directed at America's enemies; and at a corrupt, dysfunctional and costly federal bureaucracy; and — which was definitely the case during Rudy's mayoralty here in New York — at the race-guilt shakedown lobbies; and at our moronic, venal, and cowardly congresscritters; and at the U.N., … and so on. Why on Earth would anyone want a nice guy for President? Seen in this light, in fact, the only question about Rudy is: Does he have enough ornery meanness and nastiness to go round? There's your question for discussion this week, listeners: Is Rudy a big enough son of a bitch? Perhaps there's some kind of hormone treatment we can give Rudy to make him even more of a pitiless, sneering, devious, wife-dumping jerk. I sure hope so. |
| 04 — Obama's slave-holding ancestors. Senator Barack Obama, as I guess
everyone knows by now, is the issue of a white American mother and a black Kenyan father.
Now someone has found out that on his mother's side, Obama has slave-owning ancestors. A chap named William Adams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress says that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Kentucky. On a zero-to-ten scale of being interesting, I'd rate this about a one. However, since we've started down this path, let's have full disclosure. Let's hear about the other side of Obama's family. Did any of his father's ancestors owned slaves? East Africa was a great center of slave trading until those evil British imperialists came along and abolished the trade in the 1870s. Huge numbers of these African slaves were shipped out to Arabia by Muslim slave traders, but slavery was a part of the local society too. Senator Obama's father was from the Luo tribe, which both owned and traded slaves. So: Are there slave-holders in the senator's father's line, too? I'm only asking. |
| 05 — Do our nukes work? National Review editor Jeff Hart likes to
say that we shouldn't build any more nuclear weapons till we've used up the ones we've got.
I sort of see Jeff's point; but technologically speaking, this is not good policy. Nukes degrade over time and become unreliable. You need to make new ones. Well, this week the administration announced that they are going to do just that: build a new generation of nukes to a new advanced design. That's the good news. The bad news is that we're apparently going to have to retire old warheads at twice the rate we install the new ones, leaving us with less nukes altogether. And then, catch this. Quote from the new story: "Of overriding concern to members of Congress has been that the warhead be developed without the need for underground tests." End quote. Eh? How reliable are these things going to be if we don't test them? If it's okay for North Korea to test a bomb — in fact, it's a bit more than okay: after their bomb test, we rewarded them for it with a big basket of goodies — if it's okay for the Norks to test a bomb, why isn't it okay for us? How about we test a couple of these suckers on North Korea? Oh, all right, all right, I know I'm not supposed to say that. You can't stop me thinking it, though. |
| 06 — China's plans and intentions. Following right on from that, here's a
news story from Peking.
Communist China is going to boost military spending by 17.8 percent this year. This follows more than a decade of double-digit annual increases. Here is what John Negroponti, the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State had to say about it. Quote: "We think it's important in our dialogue that we understand what China's plans and intentions are." Well, let me help you out with that, John. China's plans are to have a really big, really intimidating military loaded up with every kind of high-tech weaponry their agents over here can steal. That's their plans. What was the other thing? Oh, their intentions. Their intentions are, first and foremost, to be in their region what the U.S.A. is in ours: the Number One, the top dog, the big Kahuna, the one who calls the shots, the one nobody messes with. Second, to get into a sufficiently strong position to make Taiwan an offer they can't refuse. Third, to push the power envelope as much further as it will go — all the way to absolute world supremacy in their sweetest dreams. Those are China's plans and intentions, John. Anything else you need to know? I'll be glad to help out. I can be reached via National Review, 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York, and I bill by the hour. |
| 07 — Open borders for the kiddies! The open-borders anarchists, perhaps
sensing that they
are losing ground against those of us who think that not all of the world's six billion people should be allowed to come and live in the U.S.A., the
anarchists have found a new angle.
Now it's all about the kiddies, the kiddies, the dear little kiddies. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, the immigration cops raided a leather-goods factory, detaining 327 of the 500 employees. But — shock! horror! — some of these lawless intruders into our country had kids in the local school system, or with babysitters. What to do? You might think that a humane solution would be pretty straightforward. You figure out which kids belong to which criminals. You unite the children and the parents and you put them somewhere comfortable but secure until parents and children can be sent back to their home countries. Right? Well, that was a bit too simple for the authorities in Massachusetts. Forty-five of the illegals, described as "sole care-givers" to their children, were released from custody so they could look after the kids. How they're supposed to do that now that they have no jobs, was not explained. In any case: Down at the other end of the country in Taylor, Texas that whole scenario about a comfortable but secure holding facility has run into a snag, viz. that no facility could ever be comfortable enough to satisfy the ACLU. Those guardians of American liberties are suing the feds because the Hutto family detention facility in Taylor doesn't come up to the standard of the presidential suite at the Las Vegas Bellagio. And what's more children are locked up there with their parents! Sobbed one illegal immigrant name of Denia — Denia, that's D-E-N-I-A: perhaps we could start a subscription fund to buy her an "L" — says Denia, quote: "An adult can handle …" I'm sorry, I should have been reading this in a weepy, tearful voice, but I just can't summon it up. "An adult can handle more, you know, but children, they don't understand why they're being locked up." Well, you know me, Denia, always glad to help out. I'll explain to the kiddies why they're being locked up. Listen up kids! You're being locked up because your parents tried to use you as human shields against the law-enforcement authorities of the United States. Or, to put it another way, your loving parents tried to use you as bargaining chips so they could jump the immigration line, get into the U.S.A. and hook up to the free education, free hospital emergency care, food stamps, child vaccination program, subsidized state college tuition, subsidized housing, and all the rest of those great benefits funded by working, legal U.S. citizens. Your parents — those very people now squeezing up tears for the TV cameras — used you to help them break our country's laws. That's why you're being locked up. Hope I've been able to clarify that for you. |
| 08 — A tale of two surges. Now let's talk about the surge. I'm sure it's on
your mind; I'm sure you've been reading about it; and I'm sure you're hoping, as I am, that our guys will be able to contain the violence, and perhaps
even roll back the tide of destruction and murder.
I'm speaking, of course, of what the Washington Times called the, quote, "unprecedented surge in violence on our country's border with Mexico." Another quote from the Times: Federal, state, and local law-enforcement officials from Texas to California, concerned about the impact of illegally imported weapons into Mexico, say they are already out-manned and out-gunned by ruthless gangs that collect millions of dollars in profits by smuggling aliens and drugs into this country. Further quote from Sheriff Gonzalez: "With automatic weapons, grenades, and grenade launchers, they pose a significant danger." End quote. Well, not to worry. A couple more prosecutions of border agents with twelve-year jail sentences dished out; a couple more immunity deals for Mexican drug smugglers; and the feds will have the problem under control in no time, you can be sure. As to that other surge: The bad guys in Baghdad have done just what you or I would do on learning that 21,000 soldiers were on their way to our city. They have gone to stay with Cousin Ahmed out in the countryside for a few months, till it all blows over and they can get back to business again. This is officially referred to as "a dramatic reduction in the level of violence." And the war goes on. |
| 09 — Miscellany. Now, a closing miscellany of short items.
Item: Two 19-year-old women robbed a Bank of America branch in Acworth, Georgia. Neither of them seems to be an astronaut. Item: That guy who said the thing about the other person to that other guy was found guilty of something. Everybody in central Washington D.C. is really, really excited about it. Item: Just following on from that story about illegal immigrant children: A wooden house in the Bronx, New York City, had been split into two apartments. In those two apartments lived 22 people from Mali, a West African nation. That's 22 people. When the house caught fire, eight of the children and one adult died. Still, at least they never had to face the horrors of that Texas detention facility. Item: A woman in Saudi Arabia was kidnapped and abducted by a gang of men wielding kitchen knives. The men took the woman to a farm and raped her fourteen times. The story has a happy ending, though. Justice was done at last. The woman — the woman — was sentenced to ninety lashes because at the time of her abduction she was alone with a man she wasn't married to. Item: Asked what he thinks of Barack Obama, Louis Farrakhan said, quote: "He's a beautiful young man." From there on, it got weirder really fast, as it does tend to do with big Louis. Continuing the quote: "My fear is when you get in a seat and you don't know the electrical current that's up under your seat and you start getting these jolts and you've got to see where the jolt is coming from …" I think perhaps I'd better not go on any further with that. So according to Mr Farrakhan, Obama's a beautiful young man sitting in an electric chair. Whatever, Louis. Item: Someone paid about $130,000 at an auction for Obi wan Kenobi's hooded robe from the first Star Wars movie. I don't get this. What do you do with this thing when you get it home — put it on and practice with your Toys-R-Us light saber? Zhroom, zhroom. There are some very lonely people out there. Item: There could soon be some more lonely people out there. An engineering graduate of Duke University has invented a machine that will, by remote control, extract a can of beer from the refrigerator and toss it across the room to the couch where you're sitting. A couple more inventions like that and there'll be no point in a guy getting married at all. I notice in passing that this inventor fellow is a native of Huntington, Long Island. What a fine little town that must be! |
| 10 — Signoff. That's it, boys and girls. More of the sad, the bad and the
mad next week from your one, your only, your infallible source of news and comment, Radio Derb.
Take it away, Mr. Haydn. |
[Music clip: More Derbyshire Marches.]