The barbaric bloodsport of horse-fighting is popular on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines and in parts of China. Spectators place bets on the bloody spectacle and eat barbecued horsemeat cut from the unfortunate losers. The activity is officially illegal, but no one pays any attention to the law.

The horrific tournament captured in our photographs happened in the town of Don Carlos and involved 54 horses, many of which had gruesome injuries.

Thousands of people turned out to watch the bloodbath, including hundreds of children. Many of the adults were drunk and spent their time gambling and jeering at the battling animals.

Though horses do not normally fight one another, these stallions had been whipped into a fighting frenzy by the presence of a young mare who was “in season” and had been staked to the ground in the middle of the muddy arena. [...]

Veterinary care is too expensive for most owners to bother with, so wounded horses are often killed for their meat and the choicest cuts barbecued and sold to the crowd.
[Tournament of blood: The sheer horror of horse-fighting,By Danny Penman, Daily Mail, February 18, 2008]

As I’ve written before, aversion to animal cruelty is not a cultural norm in many societies: Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also… Cruelty To Animals.

Alan Greenspan wants to open the immigration flood gates in order to allow more H-1Bs to work in the U.S. He feels this will help companies avoid recession by increasing “income equality”, which is of course just a Greenspan code word for “cutting salaries”.

“Significantly opening up immigration to skilled workers solves two problems,” he said. The companies could hire the educated workers they need. And those workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality, he said. [Greenspan: U.S. economy on edge of recession, By Elizabeth Souder, The Dallas Morning News, February 14, 2008, ]

While the article was published in the Dallas News, but it’s appearing in newspapers across the USA.

The NYT reports on how the rising age of marriage in Middle Eastern countries contributes to the rising Islamic fervor.

CAIRO — The concrete steps leading from Ahmed Muhammad Sayyid’s first-floor apartment sag in the middle, worn down over time, like Mr. Sayyid himself. Once, Mr. Sayyid had a decent job and a chance to marry. But his fiancée’s family canceled the engagement because after two years, he could not raise enough money to buy an apartment and furniture.

Mr. Sayyid spun into depression and lost nearly 40 pounds. For months, he sat at home and focused on one thing: reading the Koran. Now, at 28, with a diploma in tourism, he is living with his mother and working as a driver for less than $100 a month. With each of life’s disappointments and indignities, Mr. Sayyid has drawn religion closer.

Here in Egypt and across the Middle East, many young people are being forced to put off marriage, the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect. Stymied by the government’s failure to provide adequate schooling and thwarted by an economy without jobs to match their abilities or aspirations, they are stuck in limbo between youth and adulthood.[Dreams Stifled, Egypt’s Young Turn to Islamic Fervor, By Michael Slackman, February 17, 2008]

Egypt has lots of education but few seem to learn any skills worth paying for:

Mr. Sayyid’s path to stalemate began years ago, in school.

Like most Egyptians educated in public schools, his course of study was determined entirely by grades on standardized tests. He was not a serious student, often skipping school, but scored well enough to go on to an academy, something between high school and a university. He was put in a five-year program to study tourism and hotel operations.

Five years “studying” tourism?

His diploma qualified him for little but unemployment. Education experts say that while Egypt has lifted many citizens out of illiteracy, its education system does not prepare young people for work in the modern world. Nor, according to a recent Population Council report issued in Cairo, does its economy provide enough well-paying jobs to allow many young people to afford marriage.Egypt’s education system was originally devised to produce government workers under a compact with society forged in the heady early days of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s administration in the late 1950s and ’60s.

Every graduate was guaranteed a government job, and peasant families for the first time were offered the prospect of social mobility through education. Now children of illiterate peasant farmers have degrees in engineering, law or business. The dream of mobility survives, but there are not enough government jobs for the floods of graduates. And many are not qualified for the private sector jobs that do exist, government and business officials said, because of their poor schooling. Business students often never touch a computer, for example.

On average, it takes several years for graduates to find their first job, in part because they would rather remain unemployed than work in a blue-collar factory position. It is considered a blow to family honor for a college graduate to take a blue-collar job, leaving large numbers of young people with nothing to do.

It’s not totally clear why all this contributes to increased Islamic fanaticism, other than that’s what they always seem to do over there when they have a problem: get more fanatical.

Marriage also plays on important financial role for families and the community. Often the only savings families acquire over a lifetime is the money for their children to marry, and handing it over amounts to an intergenerational transfer of wealth.

It’s not clear from this what “the money for their children to marry” is for–presumably, some mixture of a home, furnishings, and a fancy wedding ceremony.

But marriage is so expensive now, the system is collapsing in many communities. Diane Singerman, a professor at American University, said that a 1999 survey found that marriage in Egypt cost about $6,000, 11 times annual household expenditures per capita. Five years later, a study found the price had jumped 25 percent more. In other words, a groom and his father in the poorest segment of society had to save their total income for eight years to afford a wedding, she reported.

The result is delayed marriages across the region. A generation ago, 63 percent of Middle Eastern men in their mid- to late 20s were married, according to recent study by the Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution and the Dubai School of Government. That figure has dropped to nearly 50 percent across the region, among the lowest rates of marriage in the developing world, the report said. In Iran, for example, 38 percent of the 25- to 29-year-old men are not married, one of the largest pools of unattached males in Iranian history. In Egypt, the average age at which men now marry is 31.

Egypt’s population is now 80 million and growing 1.7% per year. It’s three times the size of New Mexico, but only 0.5% of the land (i.e., the banks of the Nile) are devoted to permanent crops.

The Egyptian total fertility rate is down to 2.77 babies per woman per lifetime, so Egypt’s population problem, which looks rather like a classic Malthusian trap, is slowly being resolved by the classic Malthusian method of delayed marriage and strict controls against illegitimacy leading to fewer births, just as in England before the Industrial Revolution. Of course, 2008 is after the Industrial Revolution, so you’d think they could come up with something better.

The only good idea the government has come up with is to cut down on the cost of wedding ceremonies by turning them into a mass production operation, like high school graduations:

In Egypt and in other countries, like Saudi Arabia, governments help finance mass weddings, because they are concerned about the destabilizing effect of so many men and women who can not afford to marry.

The mass weddings are hugely festive, with couples, many in their late 30s and 40s, allowed to invite dozens of family members and friends. … The couples were ferried to an open-air stadium in 75 cars donated by local people. They were greeted by a standing-room-only, roaring crowd, flashing neon lights, traditional music, the local governor and a television celebrity who served as the master of ceremonies for the event.

Obama-mania has spread south of the border as well. An opinion piece by Jaime Martinez entitled “Obama, the Hope of Latin America” was published in Mexico’s La Jornada the other day. Here are some highlights:

The United Statesean (estadunidense) society lives today a new social phenomenon. Barack Obama, senator for the state of Illinois and pre-candidate of the Democratic Party, has broken paradigms and stereotypes and now appears in the polls as the Democratic candidate with the greatest possibility of defeating the Republican party, the party of Bush.

That was the first paragraph.

Broad United Statesean groups , regardless of their ethnic, social or political origin, have joined the electoral crusade led by the young senator from Illinois, who, with a discourse far from the rhetoric of the conservative politicians, has managed to capture the attention of the citizenry of that country.

With a solid academic formation, accomplished through individual and family effort, and a permanent link with the poorest communities of his state, Barack Obama possesses a special sensitivity which permits him to understand the reality of his country and to propose alternate objectives which are solid and effective in electoral terms.

Now, pay close attention to this part:

From his African-American origin, he (Obama) launches a motto of unity for the continent: “There is not a white America, an Afroamerican America and an Hispanic America, there is only one America.” Few have probably said so much in so few words, especially when our peoples in Latin America are being urged to have a relation of cooperation, brotherhood and solidarity, in contrast to what has been up until now, where the name of the United States has been a synonym of invasion, exploitation,appropriation of natural resources and the imposition of dictators.

Notice that the writer here is using “America” not to refer specifically to the U.S.A., but, as in the Spanish language, “America” referring to the entire Western Hemisphere. (My article “Is It Wrong For Us To Call Ourselves Americans?” deals with this issue.)

For our fellow Mexicans and Latino brothers in the United States he (Obama) has a proposal:“I represent the people who until now have been marginalized. I will make sure that that that people has access to medical care and education, including the undocumented.”

With regards to migration he affirms “that the subject of immigration has been exploited by the politicians more to divide the nation than to find real solutions. This division has allowed the problem of undocumented immigration to worsen, with borders that are less secure than ever and an economy that depends upon millions of workers who live in the darkness. ”

The role of the sectors traditionally called “minorities” today has enormous relevance, thus the importance of Obama’s message arrives to all the corners of the United States and Latin America, where its definitions and positions outline a new relationship and a better understanding between our countries . Throughout its history Latin America has not been an enemy of the United States, but the United States has been to our countries, who have seen their borders invaded once and again by the troops of that nation.

Now the writer has a plan of action to support Obama :

That is why it is important that all the Latin American forces have the capacity to unite our voices behind whomever has the best possibilities of constructing a cooperative relationship with Latin America and to overthrow the bellicose party of Bush. As the parties and political organizations of Mexico and Latin America, we have the possibility to provoke a chain of collaborations and supports behind whomever can establish commitments to create new and better conditions of understanding.

And the closing paragraph:

Whatever comes to pass (or doesn’t) in the United States affects our countries, that’s why with all our strength we should create a Latin Force behind Senator Barack Obama. I am convinced we have capability of doing so .

Of course, no-one who actually believed the things Mitt Romney claimed to believe would have folded his campaign and endorsed John McCain, even if beguiled by hints of the vice-presidential nomination.

GOP managers obviously think they’ve been very clever by front-end loading the primaries to make Goldwater/ Reagan style insurrections more difficult. But it’s another reason I expect to see new parties. This new system means that activists now have to endure some six months of insult and indifference from a candidate they don’t like and think can’t win before there’s even a convention. And then there’s another three months of agony before the election. At some point, they’re going to take their marbles and stomp off.

But the telling precedent is 1996. Bob Dole was annointed GOP candidate early, because the whole Establishment was terrified of Pat Buchanan and his victory in the New Hampshire primary. By the time the convention came around, however, it was so obvious to everyone that Dole was a useless campaigner that even Beltway token conservative George Will called for his replacement. (As I recall - can’t be bothered checking Will).

Buchanan, like Ron Paul, stayed in the race, But, as in 2008, the well-heeled, comfortable alternative to the apparent nominee blinked, and dropped out.

Then it was Steve Forbes. Clinton consultant Dick Morris in his 1997 Behind The Oval Office gave this scathing analysis: had Forbes stayed in, he

…would have gone to San Diego with a large block of delegates. Not a majority, but a lot.

When Dole faltered, Forbes could have mounted an effort to force him to step aside, citing his ineffectual candidacy. As they gathered in San Diego for their convention in August of ’96, the Republicans were so afraid of losing the election with Dole as their nominee that Forbes might have found it possible to cream off enough nervous Dole delegates to win. In any case, Forbes could have inherited the “on deck” slot for 2000 and begun to capture the legitimacy so vital for Republican presidential candidates…But Forbes showed that he was an amateur by folding after Arizona and mounting weak efforts in the remaining states.

(p. 275-276)

(Actually, Forbes insiders say he was betrayed by the advice of Dole moles in his campaign, like Jack Kemp, who actually did get Dole’s VP nod. But that’s another story).

As Steve Sailer has noted, there’s real reason to think McCain will be an ineffective candidate. And, unlike the bland Dole, McCain positively enrages conservatives (and patriotic imigration reformers). And there are going to be a lot of released Romney delegates wandering around (they are not bound by Romney’s endorsement of McCain) as well as McCain delegates getting cold feet.

It’s a recipe for trouble. And opportunity.

For example, Rasmussen Reports currently shows that in Texas McCain leads Governor Huckabee very modestly, 45%-37%. (Ron Paul has 7%). Throughout this primary season, immigration has been named as the most important issue by a significant fraction of GOP primary voters, but in Texas it’s actually first (26% vs. 25% for “Economy”). McCain gets only 22% of the immigration-focused voters. (Paul gets 28%, unusually good for him).

As I’ve said before, the immigration issue is now clearly the rock beneath the water in American politics. And, with this year’s unstable situation, it could well rise again.

Dick Morris is an animal with only a limited intellectual understanding of the immigration issue. But he does instinctively sense its power. He actually suggested that George W. Bush could guarantee victory with it in 2004. And this is his account of how he would have advised Dole to beat Clinton, which he would certainly have been happy to impart for the appropriate fee:

Had I been running Dole’s campaign, I would have said, “President Clinton did a fine job of helping us to get our economy in order. He set us on the path to a balanced budget. But now we must turn to the new issues we face, the values issues.” Then I’d have focused on a host of issues that the president was afraid to touch or that his interest group support wouldn’t let him touch—ending teacher tenure, school choice, school prayer, an end to school busing, the balanced-budget amendment,

a moratorium on immigration,

passage of a federal right-to-work law, a ban on porn on the internet. I’d have piled it on.

(p. 271-2). [My emphasis].

In 1996! But, as Morris also notes, GOP campaign consultants just haven’t got the message - yet:

I had studied the Republican Party from within as one of their consultants. If you are in their field of fire, they are deadly. Raise taxes, go soft on crime, oppose work for welfare, weaken the military? They’re all over you yelling “liberal”. If you wander into their line of fire, they’re going to kill you every time. But they have no other game plan, no other way to win. If you come around behind them or alongside and don’t raise taxes, if you’re tough on crime and want to reform welfare, use the military effectively, and cut spending, they can’t hit you. A tank can rotate its turret—a Republican can’t.

(p. 317-318)

This is a fair description of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Establishment Right. It’s why we started VDARE.com.