His relatives refuse to give the Boston butcher a Muslim burial, so–what do you know?—Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s dhimmi victims are obliging. Apparently interring the dead is another one of those inviolable American values. And not only that, but giving this detritus of humanity a burial that comports with his faith is an obligation as well. All nonsensical, if not plain immoral. Incinerating Tsarnaev’s remains is the moral thing to do. (I was going to write that cremation was a “perfectly American” thing to do here, but I am unsure if we act as a moral people would any longer.) Cremation conserves resources and leaves (almost) nothing behind.

Via Fox News:

Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlor, agreed to handle the funeral arrangements. He told Fox News:

“They can protest, but what do you do? In this country, we bury the dead.” Stefan said everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of their death and said he is prepared for protests. But he added that arrangements have yet to be worked out, and finding a final resting plot for the body – which Islamic law says must not be cremated – could prove difficult.

UPDATE (May 5): Carrion For A Hungry French Vulture? Speaking of the detritus of humanity, philosophically, at least: The French are a people whose revolution was a precursor to the Karl-Marx inspired Russian Revolution and the Nazi menaces. During the Reign of Terror, and by popular demand, thousands of the country’s best and brightest—clergy, the aristocracy, and the educated—were guillotined in assembly-lines. This was a dress rehearsal for the industrialized, mass killing of the Communists and Nazis.

Fast forward to France of 2013. Due to EU central planners’ rulings, the vultures of France (the good kind; the birdies) are without carrion. The poor animals are starving. They did what they do best: clean up after human beings. And now French farmers, who can’t survive sans state subsidies (but expect vultures to), want to eradicate the Griffon vultures.

Cut vulture some slack. Can we not send a certain slab of putrefying flesh to poor these scavengers?

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“Margaret Thatcher: An Individualist, Not A Feminist” is the new column, now on WND. Here is an excerpt. Read the rest on WND:

“Feminism is a form of collectivism. The sludge of feminist thought was as foreign to Margaret Thatcher’s supple mind as originality is in the collective consciousness of Dana Perino and Kimberly Guilfoyle.

Big hair, an overbite, botox and mind-numbing banalities: These best describe the female hosts on Fox News’ ‘The Five,’ a current-affairs panel, on which Lady Thatcher’s achievements were being claimed for womanhood.

To be fair to the pair from ‘The Five,’ a procession of equally vacuous panelists, plonked on other God-awful, dual-perspective chat forums—now multiplying on TV—had all rattled on about Margaret Thatcher qua woman.

The solipsistic sorority known as feminism was alien to Mrs. Thatcher, who was a methodological individualist, if ever there was one. The ‘Iron Lady’ would have had nothing but contempt for the mediocrities claiming her achievements for their communal sisterhood.

The causes of the late Mrs. Thatcher—who served as the United Kingdom’s prime minister from 1979 to 1990, and passed away this week—were those of “individual men and women” and their families.

As Lady Thatcher famously averred, feminism was poison. ‘No! No! No!’ The Lady was not for feminism. Within parliament, Prime Minister Thatcher had disavowed “little sir echo’s” acquiescence to the colossal collective of the European superstate. From without parliament, she would have extended the same scorn to little miss echo’s campaigns for gender-driven sectional interests.

The force of Mrs. Thatcher’s thinking and leadership flowed from a fierce independence of mind that precluded an affinity for the black hole of feminist thought—the collapse of which becomes increasingly likely as its center of gravity grows heavier. (Yes, women—especially feminists—risk vanishing into self-centeredness and self-preoccupation.) A bona fide feminist at the Guardian got it right. Mrs. Thatcher, she fumed, had no empathy for woman-centric whining, preferring the company of men.

Such was Lady Thatcher’s individualism that she even hand-bagged Thomas Jefferson for what she perceived as his flawed expression of the American Mind …”

The complete column, “Margaret Thatcher: An Individualist, Not A Feminist,” is on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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UPDATE I: No To The EU. It says a lot about collectivism’s historic, unstoppable momentum that Margaret Thatcher was ousted as prime minister of Britain, in 1990, because of one of her most prophetic and patriotic insights: that against the European superstate. She famously insisted that, “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”

UPDATE II: Libertarians will and should continue to debate whether Margaret Thatcher truly reduced overall government outlays. While economic growth outpaced government growth during the Thatcher years, as The Spectator’s Jonathan Jones observed, “Government spending actually rose by 17.6 percent in real terms under Thatcher.”
We might, in addition to all else, ponder why, given the privatization Thatcher accomplished—National Freight, steel, gas, telecoms and water—Mrs. Thatcher failed to tackle Britain’s National Health Service. Alas, there is so much one woman can do. To ignore her towering intellect and her patriotism, so unusual today among the Anglo-American traitor class, is worse than stupid.

UPDATE III: “Milton on Maggie.”

UPDATE IV (4/12): The Republican Teletwits are Feminists. Jeff P writes:

Ilana,
Very well written piece capturing so many of the essentials of Lady Thatcher. However as regards the two ladies of The Five, I didn’t at all sense that they were/are leftist feminist supporters and am of the belief or at least the impression that they would agree with your statements about Lady Thatcher vs liberal feminism. I do want to tell you however, that I believe you do the quality of your essay a disservice with the ad hominems of “botox, big hair, and overbite.” I think it is within bounds to draw the analogy of the feminist sludge to Thatcher’s supple mind as originality to the collective consciousness of Perino and Guilfoyle. Just my thoughts.

Sincerely,
Jeff P.

Reply:

Dear J.,

Never said they were leftist; but they are neocon-Republican feminists. Which, I suppose, is left, in my book. All Republican TV tarts (bar Malkin and Coulter who are serious commentators, but are not invited on panels b/c too smart for their hosts) are feminist lightweights. Think about what individualism versus feminism involves. The constructs deployed by the many Dana Perinos and Kimberly Guilfoyles, festooning panels all over the networks, are invariably gender-centric.
The two were incapable of addressing Mrs. Thatcher’s thinking, other than to chirp on about her contribution to making them feel better as women; brightening their prospects as females. Well, she should not have, because Mrs. Thatcher was nothing like them.
In any case, their discourse is feminist, not individualist.
As to the bite. Writing has to be biting and sharp, not boring and agreeable. If you back up the bite with facts, and I do my best—then one should have some fun. Those two broads are thick. Why are they there speaking to the nation? Why are all these panels bedecked with such silly sorts? Because these women will never say anything remotely provocative or original. Never have, never will.

Here is another one.

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“American Jezebel Amanda Knox To Face Justice” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“‘Five, three and one’ is how Wendy Murphy, law professor and flamboyant TV talker, counted the preponderance of forensic and circumstantial evidence that had originally convicted America’s sweetheart, Amanda Knox, of murdering Briton Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007.

In 2011, Knox’s subsequent 2009 conviction was overturned, due in no small part to a PR blitz mounted by the Knox clan and their Seattle-based publicist. A veritable media mafia thronged to put the Italian judicial system on trial for railroading their cherub.

Agitating for Amanda were mass murderer Hilary Clinton, corrupt King County Superior Court Judge Michael Heavey—he abused his office (my state; my taxes) to petition members of the Italian judiciary on behalf of Knox, in violation of Washington state’s Code of Judicial Conduct—Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell (she misspells her surname), ubiquitous tele-attorney Anne Bremner, public relations adviser David Marriott, and “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant, who had abandoned impartiality for outright advocacy.

Assisting them were our country’s national media, left and right, with the exception of Bill O’Reilly, former homicide prosecutor Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Jeanine Pirro. Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC—all worked tirelessly for the attractive, white kids.

Not that the unthinking Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith, Wolf Blitzer, Piers Morgan, Dr. Drew, Oprah (on and on), gave the time of day to the victim’s family—but the Kerchers were too classy to partake in the circus created by the ugly Americans and their aides.

A studious disregard for facts saw Knox’s stalwart defenders stateside claiming she had been deprived of due process. In American (positive) law, procedural violations can get evidence of guilt—a bloodied knife or a smoking gun—barred from being presented at trial. More often than not, such procedural defaults are used to suppress immutable physical facts, thus serving to subvert the spirit of the (natural) law and justice.

Yes, another of our media’s collective moos was that, not being American, Italian justice was simply backward.

As to Murphy’s aforementioned evidential number ‘five’: Five spots of blood were harvested from the apartment where Meredith Kircher was murdered. More key forensic evidence against Knox included her footprint in blood outside Kercher’s room. Traces of Knox’s DNA and Kercher’s blood commingled on the fixtures in the bathroom the girls shared, ‘on doorjambs and walls,’ to be precise. And a knife found in Sollecito’s apartment bore Knox’s DNA on the handle and Kercher’s DNA in a groove on the blade. …

…It’s time for Amanda, America’s Janus-faced Jezebel, to face justice for acting out her fantasy.

The complete column is “American Jezebel Amanda Knox To Face Justice”, now on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

JOIN THE DISCUSSION, AND DO BATTLE FOR LIBERTY BY:

• Using the content-sharing icons on Barely a Blog posts.

• At the WND and RT Comments Sections, and on Facebook.

• By clicking to “Like,” “Tweet” and “Share” WND’s “Return To Reason” , and RT’s “Paleolibertarian Column.”

This Sunday, I’ll be on The Robert Wenzel Show. Wenzel’s EPJ, Economic Policy Journal, is one of the best, intellectually diverse, libertarian blogs on the blogosphere.

UPDATE I: When Wendy Murphy gets something right it is only by accident. But even Murphy got this one right by echoing credible reports and mining the forensics, the timeline and other circumstantial evidence. From “O.J.-Like Evidence Convicts Noxious Knox,” a previous column I wrote:

“Some time during the night,” by the Times of London’s telling, “the couple had returned to the cottage and faked a burglary in the room of another housemate. But as the police picked through the broken glass they were told that nothing had been stolen. They would have left it at that had not the housemate asked insistently why the door to Kercher’s room was locked shut. Eventually, it was knocked down. Kercher lay virtually naked on the floor, her two cotton tops rolled up above her chest. Oddly, her body was partly covered by a beige quilt” [the telltale signature of a female perpetrator, as a behavioral analyst would subsequently explain].
Going against the grain of American-style boosterism, Barbie Nadeau of Newsweek stuck with “journalism” to detail the ample evidence against the pair, downplayed or downright suppressed in the American media. For one, “Neither suspect [had] a credible alibi for the night of the murder, and both told a variety of lies about that night.” Knox changed her alibi, not once or twice, but several times. In the process, she accused Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner, of the crime. Based on the convincing yarn Knox spun, Lumumba spent time in jail before being released.
After Knox had cast her pal Lumumba aside, she tried to implicate her lover of two weeks, venturing: “I think it is possible Raffaele went to Meredith’s house, raped her, then killed her and then when he got home, while I was sleeping, he pressed my fingerprints on the knife.
“[C]redible witnesses had shattered Sollecito’s alibi for the night of the murder. Sollecito says he was home that night working on his computer, but specialists … testified that his computer was dormant for an eight-hour period the night of Kercher’s murder.”
“Theatrics aside,” wrote Newsweek’s Nadeau, “the Amanda Knox trial comes down to forensics. … Among the most damning evidence against Sollecito is his DNA on the metal clasp of the bra that was cut from Kercher after she died.”
Also revealed with Luminol was a bloody footprint at the crime scene that matched Sollecito’s. “Key forensic evidence against Knox includes her footprint in blood in the hallway outside Kercher’s room. There [were] also mixed traces of Knox’s DNA and Kercher’s blood on the fixtures in the bathroom the girls shared. And a knife was found in Sollecito’s apartment with Knox’s DNA on the handle and … Kercher’s DNA in a groove on the blade.”
Like the original “Dream Team,” defense attorneys for Knox, “who at one time admitted to being at home when the murder took place,” alleged contamination (even though the crime scene was sealed off in-between searches), character assassination and insufficient amounts of DNA (it’s the type of DNA that matters, not the amount).

And from my “America’s Angelic O.J.”:

Besides the famously contested Kercher and Knox DNA found on the knife at Sollecito’s apartment, the victim and the alleged perpetrator’s blood comingled elsewhere in the house they shared. In the bedroom of another roommate, Filomena Romanelli, for example.
Ms. Romanelli’s room was the scene of a staged burglary. Why staged? Glass shards were found scattered atop Romanelli’s ransacked belongings, rather than beneath the items. The break-in was reported by team Knox and Sollecito. Well before Romanelli had returned to verify his say-so, Solecito told police that nothing was missing. When the police arrived on the scene, Knox and Sollecito kept them away from Meredith’s locked door with a ruse: their friend, they promised, was in the habit of locking her door. A lie. When roommate Romanelli returned, she demanded that the locked door be broken down claiming the exact opposite.
More mixed blood was found in the bathroom the women shared. As Daily Beast correspondent Barbie Latza Nadeau reported, unflinchingly, “Luminol which detects prints left in blood, bleach, and certain acidic juices” helped uncover a Knox footprint” on the bathmat, which Knox excused by saying she took a shower right after noticing blood on the mat. American broadcasters failed to divulge too that there were ample partial fingerprints at the scene of the crime, which could have been smeared during the cover-up.
Nadeau, who is the author of the book “Angel Face,” reported that “countless forensic experts, including those who performed the autopsies on Kercher’s body, [had] testified that more than one person killed [Meredith] based on the size and location of her injuries and the fact that she didn’t fight back—no hair or skin was found under her fingernails.”
Rafaelle Sollecito was unable to corroborate Knox’s alibi on the night of the murder. She had claimed she was with him and that they “cooked dinner, watched a movie, smoked pot, and had sex.” Conversely, Sollecito said he had been downloading cartoons from his personal computer at the time of the murder. But according to Nadeau, computer experts were able to confirm that there was no activity on his PC during those hours. In eerie synchronicity, Sollecito and Knox had switched off their cellphones during the night of the murder. Despite claiming to have slept in, the cells were turned on early the next morning.
On November 5, 2007, after cartwheeling and canoodling with Sollecito at the police station, Knox framed Patrick Lumumba for Meredith’s murder and rape which she claimed to have overheard. (At that stage, only the cops knew Ms. Kercher had been sexually assaulted.) Lumumba was Amanda’s innocent employer. Knox even committed this evidentiary concoction to writing in a five-page memorandum. Later she blamed police for making her. Amanda’s allergy to the truth cost Lumumba—another black man who remained voiceless in the American media—his livelihood and reputation.

UPDATE II (3/29): Barbie L. Nadeau: Your Go-To Source on Noxious Knox. From the column: “Granted, when Wendy Murphy gets something right it is only by accident. Remarkably, however, Murphy stumbled upon the truth here, by parroting the powerful forensic and circumstantial evidence in the Knox case, as reported by the brave Barbie Latza Nadeau, a Newsweek and Daily Beast correspondent based in Rome, and the Times of London.”

From Barbie Latza Nadeau, one of the best, old-school journalists on the case, you’ll get the facts. Just the facts, Ma’am. No advocacy.

UPDATE IV: From the pen of the plain spoken Barbie L. Nadeau, one of the few Americans who has advocated first for truth and, by extension, for … the forgotten victim.

“Why Retrying Amanda Knox Is Important”:

“More than a few journalists covering the appeal noted at the time that the so-called independent experts were particularly chummy with Sollecito’s very wealthy family. …these experts were given only a few choice items of forensic evidence to review. That is likely the crux of why this acquittal was reversed. The prosecution argued that they should have reexamined the entire body of evidence, not just what tied the former lovers to the crime. …
…The prosecution also insisted that an independent review of the forensic evidence be carried out on the entire body of evidence, not just a few exhibits. Other issues brought up in the high-court appeal instead touched on the mysteries of the case, including the appellate court’s dismissal of Knox’s previous admission that she was in the house when the murder took place. The prosecution also asked that Knox’s false accusation against Patrick Lumumba, her former boss at a club where she waitressed, as Kercher’s killer be considered as evidence. After all, the same appellate court upheld her conviction of slander for the accusation. Why not consider it a clue to the mystery, it argued. Finally, the prosecution asked the supreme court to examine the truth behind why Knox and Sollecito turned off their cell phones at the same time—for the first time ever—the night Kercher was murdered.”

From “Analysis: Amanda Knox case is complicated, confusing mess”:

“…Kercher, who shared an apartment with Knox in Perugia near the University for Foreigners, was stabbed in her bedroom and left for dead on November 1, 2007. Her autopsy showed that she choked on her own blood. She had not been raped, according to her autopsy, but she was found partially nude, adding an element of mystery to the case that laid the groundwork for what would become a theory that Kercher died as part of a “sex game gone wrong.”
The door to her bedroom was locked from the inside and pulled closed.
…Italy’s highest court decided to reject the acquittal in its entirety and send the case back to a panel of appellate judges to reconsider. What that means in practical terms is nothing short of a complicated, confusing mess.
…There is a valid extradition agreement between the two nations, but the U.S. has not set much of a precedence in returning suspects for such matters. In 1998, an American fighter jet clipped a ski lift cable sending a gondola of 20 passengers to their death in the Italian Dolomite mountain range.
Italy had requested their extradition to try them for multiple manslaughter, but the U.S. refused and tried them in a military tribunal instead. They were found not guilty.”

“Angel Face excerpt”: How the Media Got Knox WrongOver the next few days, Amanda was preoccupied with finding a new place to live. Her mother’s cousin, Dorothy Craft Najir, urged Amanda to come to her house in Hamburg until things settled down. Amanda refused. Later, the court would hear that she wanted to stay and help the investigators. In fact, she could not have left Perugia without raising an alarm. Detectives were watching her every move. Instead, Amanda repeatedly called Filomena and Laura to ask if they could live together again and to inquire after a refund for the rent and deposit she had paid. The two Italian roommates were perplexed by her behavior, as was Meredith’s new boyfriend, Giacomo Silenzi, who had been out of town when Meredith was murdered. The police were questioning all of Meredith’s friends, calling them to the station in groups to iron out certain elements of the crime. On November 2, Amanda was already at the police station when Giacomo arrived by train from his parents’ house in the Marche. “I could not help thinking how calm and cool Amanda was,” he told investigators. “Meredith’s other friends were devastated, and I was upset, but Amanda was completely emotionless. Her eyes didn’t seem to show any sadness, and I remember wondering if she had been involved.”

The Telegraph on American chauvinistic group-think:

“Click through American television channels and it would seem that there is only one point of contention in the country’s reaction to the murder conviction of Amanda Knox.” And on “…the level of organisation that has been rooting for Amanda Knox in the US.”

A group called Friends of Amanda attracted headlines earlier this week when it called on people to email Barack Obama to support Knox’s appeal.
The Friends, based in Knox’s hometown of Seattle, Washington, has in fact been in existence for the past 18 months – a growing alliance of friends, lawyers, writers and scientists who have been energetically campaigning on her behalf.
The group has not only raised more than $100,000 towards the Knox family’s reported $1 million travel and legal fees, but provided at least 10 scientists who volunteered to pick holes in the prosecution forensic evidence.
More usefully, the Friends managed to enlist the support of several prominent lawyers – including John Kelly, the main counsel for the Nicole Brown Simpson family in their civil case against OJ Simpson.
The Friends stress they are not connected to the Knox family and receive no funding, but merely “recognise that Amanda is innocent” and “simply want to see justice”.
Internet debate about the Knox case has been characterised by the ferocity of opinions on either side. Apart from a prominent Seattle lawyer named Anne Bremner, the Friends’ members have chosen to remain anonymous.
The group used its local political connections to enlist the support of Maria Cantwell, a Washington US senator.
She has suggested the verdict raises “serious questions” about Italian justice and the possible “taint” of anti-Americanism.
Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, has agreed to meet Sen Cantwell and anyone else concerned about the case, but both she and her officials have so far appeared lukewarm about making this a crusading issue.

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Cypriot officials had colluded with euro-zone Kleptocrats in order to raid individual savings accounts in their country to pay for their profligacy.

If the little guy did this—you or I—we’d be in the big house.

Other than that it is theft, seizing private property to pay for “public” debt punishes the economically righteous, who squirreled away for a rainy day (RETIREMENT). Observe how state policies, in addition to generally being immoral, invariably help invert conventional morality.

The right of private property notwithstanding, why should savers pay for spenders?

However, ask yourself this:

WHY is state-sanctioned theft from Cypriot savers any different to your paycheck being docked for statutory payroll tax deductions?

WHY is state-sanctioned theft from Cypriot savers any different in principle to the statutory theft called the income tax; and, in particular, from the progressive income tax, where the rich (“savers”) are penalized for the sins of the rest?

As to taxes on assets: Property taxes, taxes on investments—why are these seizures of private property any different in principle to the lunge on Cypriot savings accounts the bankers and bureaucrats of Europe have made?

You’d think the US doesn’t tax assets. It does. And how are the taxes above different in principle from a bank deposit levy?

UPDATE (3/20): From Vox Day:

One of the many unintended consequences of the Cyprus situation is that many people are finally beginning to understand that money they deposit into a bank is no longer their money. It’s one thing to have some vague notion of what a fractional reserve system is, it’s another to realize that with every deposit, you are making what amounts to an interest-free loan to some of the shadiest and shakiest entities on the planet.

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Permanently tethered to the welfare state, Europeans are unwilling to make the connections between the regulatory state and steep prices, high unemployment, and a declining standard of living. It would seem obvious that the greater the cost of doing business, the less business will be done. But not to the individual who is motivated to keep the gravy train chugging along.

He wants to get that free lunch, even if it is his Last Supper.

Via John Stossel:

In Europe …workers … get “vacation do-overs”- if they are sick on vacation, they get additional paid time off to make up for it. In Spain, employers must give 24 months of severance pay after they fire someone. No wonder companies don’t hire. [Unemployment among youth there is 50 percent.]
America doesn’t have mandatory vacation time, but we still have 170,000 pages of rules.

Want to expand your business? The costs to a proprietor of adding new workers will be prohibitive, often in excess of the workers’ productivity.

In Italy, it is near impossible to fire an employee once he has been hired. If he steals and worse; the onus is on the business owner to prove his case before he can fire the offender. Bad work habits and low productivity don’t constitute cause for dismissal.

In all, a European business is better off staying small. Don’t reach for the sky. Limp along below the regulator’s radar.

MORE.

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I’ve been following the breaking news on RT of how “all four pro-independence parties now dominate 60 percent of the Catalan Parliament.” Fans of freedom, and hence of secession and nullification, will likewise be watching the developments in Spain’s Catalonia with great interest.

I’m surprised, however, that Drudge Report is doing the same. Today, 11/25/2012, Drudge led with the story, which none of the Dem and Republican loyalists on cable are remotely interested in. The same applies to the press. A “Calderon” item headlines the Washington Post’s “World” section. Neither has the possibility of secession in Spain made the front “page” of BBCNews.com

In the US, a country won over by dishonest Abe, it is considered politically improper to advocate political divorce down to the individual (check).

I may be jaded, but I think that Drudge views secession state side as a stand against Barrack Obama and thus worth hyping. More generally, he would not be covering a mass movement to secede in Europe, if it were not germane to his partisan interests in the US.

The GOP, the party of Lincoln, stands for centralized power, so long as their chosen dictator is at the helm. The same goes for the party’s press apparatchiks.

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