Category Archives: Ilana Mercer

Update VIII: Launching The Most Beautiful Site (& Blog) On the WWW

Aesthetics, Free Markets, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Technology

We have lift off!

At last we’ve launched the fabulous, new ILANAMERCER.COM.

The site is huge; the task Herculean. It’s easily the most beautiful site on the WWW.

As you spend time on the new ILANAMERCER.COM, you’ll get an opportunity to test the site’s database and advanced search, and enjoy its many features.

“Going live” is much like moving into a castle in cyberspace.

Developing some of the concepts was great fun. First to my favorite, the creature named “that funky snake”:

At the risk of being denounced, I did not want the Stars and Stripes on the site. The flag no longer stands for the classical liberal ideas and ideals of self-government and individual rights. I don’t think I’d get an argument from our regular readers.

Conversely, early American symbols do represent the values cherished and championed in my work. And in particular, the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Or the Gadsden flag.

Other candidates were the Liberty Bell and Liberty Tree. The massive trunk and gnarled bark of the oak (elm was also used) is depicted famously in a lithograph by E. C. Kellogg, the “Connecticut Charter Oak.” (It lives at the Connecticut Historical Society.)

The two symbols, however, turned out to be way too busy as website wallpaper. I just knew that, enlarged as background, the snake symbol would give the page the depth I wanted, bar the busyness. The snake just needed the right artistic touch. He got it.

Although fierce, the rattle snake is an honorable creature that never attacks without provocation and gives its enemies ample notice before attacking. Read about the Gadsden flag here.

The “Ilana Shrugged” concept was certainly unorthodox, down to the Atlas that matched the site’s theme colors.

A nice touch is the call-out side bars on the site’s core pages, showcasing Mercer quotes. The quotes rotate and change each time the page is refreshed. Other favorite and fun elements: the Gallery design, and the mouse-over effect on the upper navigation bar. Naturally, I just had to bring Leonidas into our world. Big and bold. (Read “300.”)

But mostly, the contents. At last, all my work is under one roof, and what a smashing roof it is.

And a huge shout-out to a true maverick: our benefactor, David Szasz. David donated most of the funds for this project.

A big “thank you,” too, to each and every reader who has contributed materially or intellectually.

Enjoy.

Update I: Another handy feature: If you wish to receive the weekly newsletter, click “Mailing List” on the navigation bar, and sign up here. Want to “Unsubscribe”? That too is possible, although never recommended.

Update II: Thanks to Sam Karnick of The American Culture for his kind wishes on our launch, as well as to the Canadian economist, champion of liberty, Pierre Lemieux. He quipped that ours was a “nice site/sight.”

Professor Haym Benaroya is most gracious:

Ilana, your new web site is representative of its owner: unique, and attractive to the mind and the eye. You truly are a master of language. I also appreciated the Atlas-like pose, as would have, I am sure, Ayn Rand. I will spend some more serious time looking it over. (I am wondering why, given Sean Hannity’s endorsement, he does not invite you to his show?) Best of luck! I do what I can to publicize your columns.

Update III: Barely a Blog is getting a makeover too. Fear not.

Update IV (October 29): Another favorite of mine is the “Click-to-expand-click-to-close” features on the Biographical and Quotables pages.

Update V (October 31): Although extremely user-friendly, some of you may find the Advanced Search a little intimidating. So, on the Articles Page, a smart, Search-by-Category button has been set up. Click on it! You’ll arrive at this lovely page, where you can flit between the many search categories with great ease. Let us know how that works for you.

Update VI (Nov. 6): I continue to receive web-approving letters. Thanks to Prof. Rob Sauer of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies for his kind words; to the intrepid Jim Ostrowski (he has launched a new site too; I wish him all the best. I was always very pleased to have been instrumental in pushing him to write Political Class Dismissed). And to my mother, of course, for her good wishes.

Update VII (Nov. 7): Working with programmers, you learn pretty fast that Microsoft WORD is regarded as a virus. Programmers say it is crappy code. (About programmers, the spouse, who’s an RF engineer, and a PhD., once made this succinct comment: “They–programmers–manipulate ones and zeros; we–engineers–manipulate the laws of nature.”) Fair enough. I won’t get into a turf war; after all, what do I know about code? I’m willing to agree that programmers are right and WORD is crappy from a technical point of view. It sure has gummed up the beautiful font and formatting on my site with HTML gunk. However, WORD is the most popular program in the WORLD.

It is what most of us PC plebs choose to use. The market has spoken. The market always chooses voluntarily what it prefers. Hundreds of million of users have voted. Few of us want to use those other rarified programs PC snobs are always exalting. And for a reason: WORD must have an advantage. (As opposed a government agency, a company grows by gaining market share; by getting people to cast a vote for the product. There is no such thing as monopoly where voluntary exchanges are concerned; only where government is concerned.)

The fact that (far fewer) programmers cannot adapt their code to the most used program chosen by the market is a fault of the programmers, not the market. The market is always right. Call it the aggregate customer. Programmers have simply failed to come up with solution to the problems presented by WORD.

Again, theoretically, programmers who complain about WORD are probably 100% correct, but pragmatically, they’ve not solved the market’s problem. So they’re at fault.

Update VIII (Nov. 21, 2008): I have now launched the most beautiful blog on the WWW, after I had found the perfect blog spot on which to unfurl my signature, Gadsden, “Funky-Snake” flag.

Enjoy!

Update VIII: Launching The Most Beautiful Site (& Blog) On the WWW

Aesthetics, Free Markets, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Technology

We have lift off!

At last we’ve launched the fabulous, new ILANAMERCER.COM.

The site is huge; the task Herculean. It’s easily the most beautiful site on the WWW.

As you spend time on the new ILANAMERCER.COM, you’ll get an opportunity to test the site’s database and advanced search, and enjoy its many features.

“Going live” is much like moving into a castle in cyberspace.

Developing some of the concepts was great fun. First to my favorite, the creature named “that funky snake”:

At the risk of being denounced, I did not want the Stars and Stripes on the site. The flag no longer stands for the classical liberal ideas and ideals of self-government and individual rights. I don’t think I’d get an argument from our regular readers.

Conversely, early American symbols do represent the values cherished and championed in my work. And in particular, the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Or the Gadsden flag.

Other candidates were the Liberty Bell and Liberty Tree. The massive trunk and gnarled bark of the oak (elm was also used) is depicted famously in a lithograph by E. C. Kellogg, the “Connecticut Charter Oak.” (It lives at the Connecticut Historical Society.)

The two symbols, however, turned out to be way too busy as website wallpaper. I just knew that, enlarged as background, the snake symbol would give the page the depth I wanted, bar the busyness. The snake just needed the right artistic touch. He got it.

Although fierce, the rattle snake is an honorable creature that never attacks without provocation and gives its enemies ample notice before attacking. Read about the Gadsden flag here.

The “Ilana Shrugged” concept was certainly unorthodox, down to the Atlas that matched the site’s theme colors.

A nice touch is the call-out side bars on the site’s core pages, showcasing Mercer quotes. The quotes rotate and change each time the page is refreshed. Other favorite and fun elements: the Gallery design, and the mouse-over effect on the upper navigation bar. Naturally, I just had to bring Leonidas into our world. Big and bold. (Read “300.”)

But mostly, the contents. At last, all my work is under one roof, and what a smashing roof it is.

And a huge shout-out to a true maverick: our benefactor, David Szasz. David donated most of the funds for this project.

A big “thank you,” too, to each and every reader who has contributed materially or intellectually.

Enjoy.

Update I: Another handy feature: If you wish to receive the weekly newsletter, click “Mailing List” on the navigation bar, and sign up here. Want to “Unsubscribe”? That too is possible, although never recommended.

Update II: Thanks to Sam Karnick of The American Culture for his kind wishes on our launch, as well as to the Canadian economist, champion of liberty, Pierre Lemieux. He quipped that ours was a “nice site/sight.”

Professor Haym Benaroya is most gracious:

Ilana, your new web site is representative of its owner: unique, and attractive to the mind and the eye. You truly are a master of language. I also appreciated the Atlas-like pose, as would have, I am sure, Ayn Rand. I will spend some more serious time looking it over. (I am wondering why, given Sean Hannity’s endorsement, he does not invite you to his show?) Best of luck! I do what I can to publicize your columns.

Update III: Barely a Blog is getting a makeover too. Fear not.

Update IV (October 29): Another favorite of mine is the “Click-to-expand-click-to-close” features on the Biographical and Quotables pages.

Update V (October 31): Although extremely user-friendly, some of you may find the Advanced Search a little intimidating. So, on the Articles Page, a smart, Search-by-Category button has been set up. Click on it! You’ll arrive at this lovely page, where you can flit between the many search categories with great ease. Let us know how that works for you.

Update VI (Nov. 6): I continue to receive web-approving letters. Thanks to Prof. Rob Sauer of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies for his kind words; to the intrepid Jim Ostrowski (he has launched a new site too; I wish him all the best. I was always very pleased to have been instrumental in pushing him to write Political Class Dismissed). And to my mother, of course, for her good wishes.

Update VII (Nov. 7): Working with programmers, you learn pretty fast that Microsoft WORD is regarded as a virus. Programmers say it is crappy code. (About programmers, the spouse, who’s an RF engineer, and a PhD., once made this succinct comment: “They–programmers–manipulate ones and zeros; we–engineers–manipulate the laws of nature.”) Fair enough. I won’t get into a turf war; after all, what do I know about code? I’m willing to agree that programmers are right and WORD is crappy from a technical point of view. It sure has gummed up the beautiful font and formatting on my site with HTML gunk. However, WORD is the most popular program in the WORLD.

It is what most of us PC plebs choose to use. The market has spoken. The market always chooses voluntarily what it prefers. Hundreds of million of users have voted. Few of us want to use those other rarified programs PC snobs are always exalting. And for a reason: WORD must have an advantage. (As opposed a government agency, a company grows by gaining market share; by getting people to cast a vote for the product. There is no such thing as monopoly where voluntary exchanges are concerned; only where government is concerned.)

The fact that (far fewer) programmers cannot adapt their code to the most used program chosen by the market is a fault of the programmers, not the market. The market is always right. Call it the aggregate customer. Programmers have simply failed to come up with solution to the problems presented by WORD.

Again, theoretically, programmers who complain about WORD are probably 100% correct, but pragmatically, they’ve not solved the market’s problem. So they’re at fault.

Update VIII (Nov. 21, 2008): I have now launched the most beautiful blog on the WWW, after I had found the perfect blog spot on which to unfurl my signature, Gadsden, “Funky-Snake” flag.

Enjoy!

Patriot Goes Up Against Treason Lobbyist

BAB's A List, Crime, Ethics, Ilana Mercer, IMMIGRATION, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, libertarianism

Patriot Peter Brimelow, founder of VDARE.COM, debated Treason Lobbyist Jacob Hornberger on immigration.

I await footage of the debate, but I expect “Bumper Hornberger” was intellectually disemboweled.

He ought to be used to it, although the bitch-slap he received from Robert Bidinotto occurred some time ago, so “Bumper” may need a reminder. See “Shame on Bumper Hornberger,” reproduced hereunder.

I have no wish to revisit the manner in which he (and his ever-righteous ifeminist handmaiden, or hyena, rather) swarmed me. I’ll say only this: Hornberger and his backers seldom fail to bend over backwards to avoid imputing evil intent to bad elements or evil characters (as Bidinotto elaborates hereunder). Yet me Bumper and his gang accused of malicious intent in the absence of any. In other words, they implied I was a liar; impugning my person rather than my positions.

Again, notwithstanding the intellectual differences we hold on the issues; what makes these people–who’re forever posing as paragons of justice–so despicable is that they convicted me of malicious intent when there was none.

In the universe of these twisted individuals, some are more equal than others.

In any event, in “Shame on Bumper Hornberger,” Robert Bidinotto explains why “Bumper Hornberger” is a lousy exegete, not fit to defend truth. This is why I am quite confident Peter Brimelow, a class act, will have tossed and gored Hornberger “real good.”

The BIDINOTTO BLOG
Shame on Bumper Hornberger
posted 08/26/03

Bumper who?

Okay, apologies. This impromptu post refers to a matter more arcane than you’ll normally find here, and I beg your patience for a brief setup.

A feisty columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, Ilana Mercer, recently took on some fellow libertarians for their one-sided view of Middle East politics: the view that Israel is the root of all evil, and that the poor, downtrodden Palestinians are merely responding defensively and justly against the Zionist oppressor.

Ilana (she’s a friend, so I’ll call her that) has a perfectly good point. There’s a curious moral asymmetry among some self-styled lovers of Liberty and Justice, who rage against Israel for targeting the likes of Hamas terrorists in self-defense, yet who simultaneously exude boundless sympathy toward those who encourage their kids to strap on explosives and blow themselves up, along with scores of innocent noncombatants in buses, restaurants, and nightclubs. For most Americans, this is an easy moral call; but then again, most Americans aren’t libertarian anarchists.

Anyway, it so happens that one of Ilana’s targets was a writer and editor, Sheldon Richman. Not one to mince words, she wrote: “I understand that libertarians like Sheldon Richman (and the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review) believe, mistakenly, that all ‘the land’ belongs to the Arabs.”

Mr. Richman, who is of Jewish descent, took great offense. He claimed that with this sentence Ilana had implied that he, too, was among those who denied the reality of the Holocaust. One notes, though, that in her sentence, Ilana had fastidiously segregated Mr. Richman from the Holocaust Deniers by means of a parenthetical barricade. I don’t think that any fair reading of the sentence (that is, a reading by someone not personally involved in the counterpunching) would construe it to mean that Mr. Richman was similar to the I. H. R. in denying the Holocaust–only in their shared beliefs about Arab claims to Israeli land.

Now Ilana Mercer is perfectly capable of defending herself, and she has. But a bit of piling on against her has begun, with one Jacob “Bumper” Hornberger–head of something called the Future of Freedom Foundation–now hyperventilating against the lady and her online publisher, WorldNetDaily.

Mr. Hornberger believes that Mr. Richman was grievously wounded by Ilana’s parenthetical bludgeon, and has publicly damned WorldNetDaily (“Shame on WorldNetDaily” is his screed’s title) for daring to defend their columnist, rather than muzzling or disowning her. Along the way, he accuses Ilana of a “false and despicable insinuation” and of a “smear”; and he further claims that she “knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally chose not to pursue the truth…”

I would have stayed out of this particular little spat except for two things.

First, I don’t much like it when men gang up on a lady–especially a lady whom I know to be honorable.

Second, it so happens that I’ve had a bit of first-hand experience with Mr. Hornberger concerning the matters that he says so concern him: false and despicable insinuations, smears, and deliberate misrepresentations of the truth.

This seems an opportune moment to revisit that episode.

The July 1990 issue of his Freedom Daily column, “The Forgotten Importance of Civil Liberties,” found Mr. Hornberger striking his favorite pose–that of a self-righteous moralizer–this time to attack me for what he described as “a tremendous intellectual assault on civil liberties.” My offense, he proclaimed to his readership (such as it is), was my three-part series, “Crime and Consequences,” which appeared during 1989 in The Freeman magazine.

While I am gratified that, to Mr. Hornberger, my series was both “tremendous” and “intellectual,” I certainly didn’t recognize any of my views in his characterization of them. According to him, here is what I said:

“Concerned with ever-increasing crime rates in America, Mr. Bidinotto argued that the solution, at least in part, turned on the curtailment of the safeguards enunciated in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Bidinotto suggested that if Americans just loosened some of the strictures in the Bill of Rights which enabled so many criminals to go free, the crime problem could be significantly alleviated. Not spared from Mr. Bidinotto’s attack were civil liberties lawyers as well as such rights as trial by jury, right to bail, right to counsel, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, and protection from self-incrimination.”

Now had I written any of those things, I would have been first in line to condemn myself, sparing Mr. Hornberger the strain of further moral posturing. But the reader will first note a curious fact: nowhere in his bill of indictment does one find a single word in quotation marks. [A technique “Bumper” and his ifeminist friend further perfected on me.]

That isn’t surprising, since not a single claim is true.

What Mr. Hornberger declared to be attacks on the Bill of Rights were nothing more than my unapologetic assault on the Warren Court’s infamous misinterpretations and manipulations of the Bill of Rights: their shameless departures from a “strict constructionist” approach to constitutional interpretation, and their wholesale invention of a category of criminal “rights” never envisioned, intended, nor codified by the Framers.

For example, I criticized Supreme Court decisions such as Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and Mapp v. Ohio (1961) for manufacturing evidentiary “exclusionary rules” that one finds nowhere in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Yet Mr. Hornberger equated my criticism of this constitutional vandalism with criticism of the Constitution itself. Perhaps this is understandable. Mr. Hornberger is an attorney, and having gone through a modern law school, he may no longer be capable of grasping subtle distinctions–such as the difference between James Madison and Earl Warren.

To take another example, what exactly did I say that he declared to be an “attack” on the “right to bail”? Only this: “Career criminals–and anyone with a history of escapes or failures to show in court–should never get bail consideration.” That is hardly a radical assault on a “right”: in fact, it’s the essence of the 1984 federal Bail Reform Act, which grants judges the authority to deny bail to defendants who pose a danger to individuals or the community. My position is totally consistent with the wording of the Eighth Amendment, which says that “Excessive bail shall not be required”–leaving it to judges to determine whether defendants are trustworthy to appear in court, whether bail ought to be granted, and in what amount. I said nothing inconsistent with this established principle, leaving me to wonder if Mr. Hornberger believes that the Constitution guarantees bail to every defendant, no matter what his character or trustworthiness.

I could go on, but the interested reader can decide the matter for himself. The three-part series is available online: Part I, Part II, and Part III. [Links defunct.]

Afterwards, the reader may also decide for himself if the accusations Mr. Hornberger slings at Ilana Mercer more appropriately describe the accusations he made against me: “false and despicable insinuation” and “smear” by someone who “knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally chose not to pursue the truth…”

If Mr. Richman needs a defender concerned with the truth, it should be someone other than Bumper Hornberger.

Update II: Bush & The Bailout Bandits

Affirmative Action, Classical Liberalism, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Ilana Mercer, Inflation, The State

Here’s an excerpt from my new WND column:

“A crisis that was created by cheap credit must be corrected by less of the same. … How does a bankrupt person become solvent? He ceases to borrow and spend, pays down what he owes and lives within his means. But Bush and the bailout bandits (here I include Obama and McCain, who’re down with destroying the economy too) would like you to believe such eternal verities do not apply in macroeconomics.

Bush’s idea of a correction is thus to ‘free banks to resume the flow of credit to American families and businesses.’ In the man’s own crazed words!

Those who buy the Bush bailout are – to use the incomparable Paul Gottfried’s coinage – ‘at least as dumb as turkeys, the mouths of which have to be shut when it rains, lest they swallow too much water and drown.'”

An unlovely snapshot of candidates Obama and McCain. …”

The complete column, “Bush & The Bailout Bandits,” is now up on WND.

Update I (September 26): To Robert and all my readers: Surely you know by now that if my image is not on the WND masthead, my weekly column is still on the Commentary Page? If you don’t see my image up on the WND nameplate, please look for it on the Commentary Page. My image is more often than not up there, but, since there are more commentators than slots, there is a rotation. On my new website, ready to launch any day now, you will be able to sign up for the weekly newsletter.

Update II (September 27): I would not ordinarily publish a letter, such as Tom’s hereunder, urging—in the face of all that has been written by this writer—more counterfeiting of the currency, debasement of the coin, and inflation of the money supply. Fraud all. Criminal too. With respect, Tom and his idol “Mort” do not understand a thing about money and the economy. However, this might be an opportunity for Tom and others to study further. (Mort of the halls of power is a goner.) I count on our classical liberal readers to recommend a few classics by Rothbard, Mises, and others. But Tom may want to reread “Bush & the Bailout Bandits,” and move on to the following:

“Dubya the Devaluer”

“US In The Red And Getting Redder” (Note the Chinese’s response to the threat of inflation: exactly opposite to ours. They’ve hindered lending and made living high on the hog harder.)

“Politicians: Stop ‘Stimulating’ In Public”

“Inflation 101 for Women Pundits & Other Tyrants”

“The Central Bank’s Game is the Same, Whoever’s the Name”

“Canadian Finance Ministry Pulling Bank Strings as Election Looms“