Friday, December 24, 2010
LATMA's Latest - SOTA Israeli Political Satire! With A Special Christmas Song..
Laugh out loud funny!
Obama Gets Punked By The Russians - Final START VoteDelayed Until Mid-January!
The Russian Duma 'tentatively approved' the new START treaty after the Senate vote, but made it clear that final approval will not be voted on until after the legislators return from their holiday break - which end January 11th.
And after that, the treaty also needs to be ratified by the upper house, the Federation Council.
So much for all the urgency of getting this passed in the Lame Duck session!
Actually, there's no doubt that the Russians will eventually ratify this - after all Obama gave them everything but the beer concession for the Redskins' games.We've traded in nuclear superiority and missile defense in exchange for some dodgy 'verification' and the hopes the Russians will help out with Iran. But it's obvious that they wanted to send him a message, and that message was not exactly complimentary.
Here's Serge Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister talking about the treaty: "This treaty takes our relations with the United States to a qualitatively new level of equality, parity and balance of interests."
"he ratification is a priority task for the state," Lavrov said. "But we must do it in such a way that no one has any doubts about our determination to firmly demand the fulfillment of the treaty's conditions."
Exactly. Obama wants the US to be just another nation, and not the sole global superpower. In his mind, we need to be taken down a peg.
I hope the Republicans who were in such a huge hurry to jam this through are happy with themselves.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
An Interview With Israeli FM Avigdor Lieberman
Newsweek has an interview with IsraeliForeign Minister Avigdor Lieberman by Dan Ephron that bears reading. My comments are in red:
You’re not a big believer in “territory for peace.” We began the Oslo process 17 years ago, in 1993, and we’re still in a deadlock. The right approach is not peace for territory but exchanging territory and populations.
Which is exactly how every other conflict like this has been solved in the past.
Does [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu support that idea? I don’t know, but I can guess that all the right wing, including all of Likud, and maybe the majority of the Labor Party [support it].
You’re talking about drawing a line so that how many Israeli Arabs will no longer be part of Israel? At least half.
Polls suggest that 90 percent or more of Israeli Arabs don’t want that. You have 20 percent of the population that’s the Arab minority. You have 80 percent that’s Jewish. From 80 percent of the Jewish population, 70 percent support this idea.
The polls confirm that, by the way.
So even if a resident of [the Israeli Arab town] Umm al-Fahm, for instance, doesn’t want to become part of Palestine, if a majority in the country says he has to, he has no choice? He can continue to live in his property, his house, his land [and become a citizen of Palestine], or he can move to Israel.
I disagree somewhat with Lieberman here. Far better to exchange populations than give up more territory. Also, the borders become somewhat awkward if a part of the Northern Galilee get lopped off of Israel ( thinning the country's neck) but an Israeli presence continues in the Jordan Valley, which is something that is strategically necessary.
But most Israeli Arabs, the vast majority, have been loyal citizens of Israel. Every day, every week, you have another case of Israeli Arabs that are taking part in terrorist activity. You have the leaders of the Israeli Arabs, their intellectual and municipal leaders, saying they will never recognize Israel as a Jewish and Zionist state.
What about the argument that all this talk about taking away their Israeli citizenship or forcing them to sign loyalty oaths—that those are the things that alienate Israeli Arabs and turn them against Israel? What we’re trying to do is stop this phenomenon of people enjoying all the advantages of a democratic country but refusing to be integrated. They don’t want to adopt our values. It’s like in the 1930s. Everyone understood who Hitler was, but everybody tried to avoid this reality.
Who are you comparing to Hitler? [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, the Iranian threat—it’s exactly like Hitler.
But the world is not appeasing Iran. There are sanctions against Iran. There’s talk about a military option. There’s a recognition universally that Iran is a problem. Exactly like in the ’30s. Everyone knew that Hitler was a problem, and the Western world sacrificed Czechoslovakia. Not enough sanctions [have been imposed] to prevent them from acquiring nuclear capability.
Are you saying you believe Iran is going to get a nuclear bomb, that we just have to learn to live with that idea? Of course it is.
You were appointed to oversee a committee that looks at what happens the day after Iran gets the bomb. We asked ourselves once they achieve a nuclear bomb, what will be the next step? It’s clear that the first step will be occupation, de facto or de jure, of the Gulf countries.
And then what? Saudi Arabia, of course, to topple this dynasty from power.
Exactly why the Saudis are willing to let the Israelis overfly their territory to take out Iran's nukes. Obama and SecDef Robert Gates are the holdup.
Where is Israel in that scenario? We’re next, you know. It’s like Hitler. First there was Czechoslovakia and afterwards Poland. But after that the Jews paid the heaviest price.
What about the argument that Iran is a rational country? Its leaders want to survive, they want to continue being leaders, and therefore you can deter them. In the last five years, I met everyone who met Ahmadinejad. And the impression of all of them was that it’s a clear case of a crazy fanatic guy, charismatic but very radical, with his crazy idea to export the Islamic revolution, to convert all the Christians and Jews and even the Muslims to the Shia. For Ahmadinejad and for the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], it’s not a game.
I'm amazed that even someone writing for Newsweak would use th eword 'rational' to describe Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
You’ve talked about taking decades to implement any peace deal with the Palestinians. Why would it take all that time? It’s a very, very complicated agenda.
And Fatah likes the status quo just fine since the aid money keeps coming in and enriching them.
The other side sees that as an excuse to get out of making the tough decisions. It’s not. The Palestinians, when they speak in a closed meeting with you, they understand we’re not the enemy. The only one they can trust at the end of the day is Israel. What you have in the Middle East is tension not between Jews and Arabs, not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between the radical wing and the moderate people. The biggest threat for [Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad and [PA President] Abu Mazen is not Israel, it’s Hamas and [Islamic] Jihad.
I certainly hope Lieberman is correct in saying that the Pals realize that Israel is the only country they can trust. Certainly the other Arab nations have killed and expelled a lot more Arabs than Israel ever has, especially Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon.
But the legacy of Arafat is a strong one, and Islam, as always is a major factor. I have my doubts on how trustworthy the Palestinians are, no matter what they might do or say.
People see you as the radical, certainly in the Israeli context. I am the mainstream. When I started with my vision, I was really a small minority. Today we’re the third [largest] party in Israel.
Netanyahu has talked about the possibility of reaching an agreement with the Palestinians within a year. I think it’s clear to everybody today that it’s impossible. It’s not a realistic vision.
The idea that’s been floated about the Palestinians going to the Security Council and asking for recognition of a state in the 1967 borders—can you imagine a scenario where the U.S. does not veto that? The moment they declare their independence without any agreement with us, not as a result of negotiations, all the understandings we achieved, all the agreements we signed since Oslo, will be nullified. I think they have much more to lose than Israel from this step.
Bingo. In fact, I hope the Pals do exactly that, because it will end this farce once and for all.
(hat tip and a commendation to Joshua's Army member Dan F.)
Another Israeli Community Expands In Nili
Israel's High Court ruled today that construction of 60 housing units can commence at Nili, an Israeli community in the Binyamin area north of Modi'in.
Judge Neil Hendel rejected a lawsuit asking for a temporary stop-work order filed by the Arab residents of nearby Dir Elkadis with the assistance several Left wing Israeli groups.The lawsuit claimed that the land belonged to Dir Elkadis.
In actuality, as Attorney Akiva Sylvetsky, legal advisor to the Samaria Regional Authority who represented Nili explained to the Court, the construction is being carried out on state land that was declared as such in 1981. The alleged Arab 'owners' not only didn't object to the declaration at the time it was made, but they also didn't object when Israeli authorities approved the zoning plan that includes building on the land in question. The construction is being carried out with permits granted on the basis of that plan.
Needless to say, the Arab 'owners' had never built anything or farmed any crops on this land they supposedly 'owned', and the objections and the lawsuit only came when construction was announced.In US law, the Arabs would have lost the property even if they had actually owned it in a clear case of what's known as adverse possession...failure to object to a clear and public challenge to title for a significant period of time.
This is an excellent development, as it provides a precedent to toss out other nuisance law suits intended for the sole purpose of keeping Israelis from building homes.
And the location, near Modi'in is likewise a good and symbolic omen. It was in Modi'in that Mattathias, along with Judah and his other sons began the Maccabee revolt that defeated the Seleucid Empire and reclaimed the land of Israel.
Build up the land and defend it, Israel and it will sustain you.let a hundred flowers bloom and a thousand bulldozers roar.
-Selah-
World's Smartest Dog Has Vocabulary Of Over 1,000 Different Words
A border collie named Chaser has learned the names of 1,022 individual items -- more than any other animal.
Psychologists Alliston Reid and John Pilley of Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., taught Chaser the names of hundreds of toys, one by one, slowly and patiently, for three years as part of a research experiment in animal psychology.
"We can't say anything definitive about this, but there is agreement among breeders," he said, citing decades of breeding for herding that makes the dogs particularly attuned to learning words. "The hypothesis is that they do have a special propensity to language, they listen to the farmer."
"In the first experiment where we talk about the learning of proper nouns, the procedure we use is one where she was taught in a way that she couldn't fail," Pilley said. "We would place the object right on the floor, somewhere the dog couldn't miss."
Gradually, they moved on to other objects, and to verbs like "get" "fetch" and "go".
The scientists tested Chaser on her vocabulary by placing random groups of 20 toys in another room and having her fetch them by name. Chaser never got less than 18 out of 20 right in 838 separate tests over three years.
If Chaser is anything like some other dogs I've known, these scientists could have beaten this record if they had used food items instead of toys..believe me!
Nancy Pelosi's Last Act As Speaker - Denying The Armenian Genocide
This is truly despicable.
In one of her final acts as Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal) prevented a bill to recognize the Armenian genocide from reaching the House floor, a bill that enjoyed broad, bipartisan support.
"Despite a broad bipartisan majority of U.S. representatives prepared to vote in favor of the Armenian Genocide Resolution [H.Res. 252], U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose today to let this session of Congress expire without bringing this human rights legislation to a vote," Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) said in a statement on its website.
The Armenian genocide in 1915 resulted in the deaths of an estimated 900,000 to 1.5 million Armenians, was planned and ordered at the highest levels of the Turkish government and carried out by direct executions, enslavement and kidnapping, forced relocations into the desert and deliberate starvation.
This was the first modern attempt at genocide, and while for sheer high tech efficiency the Ottoman Turks couldn't match the Nazis, they were an example for them. At the infamous Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution for the Jews was decided on, Adolf Hitler, when one of his aides questioned whether the West would allow the Holocaust he had planned against Europe's Jews responded: "Who remembers the Armenians nowadays?"
He was unfortunately correct, especially since the Turks, unlike the Germans, have never admitted what happened or taken responsibility.
Apparently Pelosi and the Democrat controlled House felt 'Muslim outreach' and Turkey's 'honor' is more important than justice for Armenians..or even simple human decency.
In one of her final acts as Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal) prevented a bill to recognize the Armenian genocide from reaching the House floor, a bill that enjoyed broad, bipartisan support.
"Despite a broad bipartisan majority of U.S. representatives prepared to vote in favor of the Armenian Genocide Resolution [H.Res. 252], U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose today to let this session of Congress expire without bringing this human rights legislation to a vote," Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) said in a statement on its website.
The Armenian genocide in 1915 resulted in the deaths of an estimated 900,000 to 1.5 million Armenians, was planned and ordered at the highest levels of the Turkish government and carried out by direct executions, enslavement and kidnapping, forced relocations into the desert and deliberate starvation.
This was the first modern attempt at genocide, and while for sheer high tech efficiency the Ottoman Turks couldn't match the Nazis, they were an example for them. At the infamous Wannsee Conference where the Final Solution for the Jews was decided on, Adolf Hitler, when one of his aides questioned whether the West would allow the Holocaust he had planned against Europe's Jews responded: "Who remembers the Armenians nowadays?"
He was unfortunately correct, especially since the Turks, unlike the Germans, have never admitted what happened or taken responsibility.
Apparently Pelosi and the Democrat controlled House felt 'Muslim outreach' and Turkey's 'honor' is more important than justice for Armenians..or even simple human decency.
Mossad Stories...
Hee hee! Chris Muir at Day By Day, of course!
(hint, the character Naomi, the one with the sunglasses is ex-Israeli military)
Rome Hit By Embassy Bombings
Rome was hit today by three separate terrorist attacks that targeted foreign embassies.
All three attacks were made via parcel bombs.
The first one exploded at the Swiss embassy, seriously injuring an employee there who opened it. A second one exploded at the Chilean embassy, also injuring one employee there.
A third parcel bomb at the Ukrainian embassy failed to explode, and was later found to be a 'dummy' with no explosives inside of it.
No one has taken responsibility for the attacks, but the media is speculating that anarchists and student protesters are behind this. Rome was hit just last week with violent student protests over increased tuition fees and austerity budgeting.
I personally think that there may be jihadists at work since the bombs were sent to foreign embassies rather than Italian government buildings, and the choice of the Switzerland's embassy where the voters banned minarets and just recently adopted tougher rules on deporting immigrants (read 'Muslims') is a clue that adherents of the Religion of Peace might be involved.
The Italian Carabinieri and counter terrorism forces are said to be investigating what they term 'an international angle.'
UPDATE: According to Italian news sources, anarchist groups have claimed responsibility for the bombings and promise more to come 'until the system is brought down.'
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
A New Party For New Times - Remaking The GOP
The Republican resurgence in the midterms, welcome as it was has an element of danger to it and that danger is becoming apparent as the new GOP led Congress prepares to be seated in less than a month.
It is the danger of conducting business as usual, on the same old lines. In order not to fall into that hole, the GOP is going to have to remade if it is to survive. If not, the Republicans will go the way of the Whigs and be destroyed.And it will be a fate they utterly deserve.
The recent activities of a number of Senate Republicans during the Lame Duck session are a prime example of why this is so.
In the space of a mere few days,enough GOP senators defected to allow the Obama Administration to claim wins on Don't Ask Don't Tell, a flawed tax 'compromise', a dodgy 'food safety' bill, and the rushing through of the ratification of the unfortunate START treaty with Russia that compromises our nuclear deterrent.
The problem is not that "Harry Reid has eaten our lunch" as GOP Senator Lindsay Graham said in a widely quoted public rant.It goes far deeper.
The Senators voting for these measures include the Northeast Republicans -Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and so did RINO Lisa Murkowski - but the real story is that a number of establishment Republicans from Red States like Johnny Isaakson of Georgia , Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mark Kirk of Illinois, George Voinovich of Ohio,Robert Bennett of Utah, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee,and Dick Lugar of Indiana among others voted with the Democrats on measures like repealing DADT and START.
There was absolutely no reason why any of this agenda couldn't have waited until the new Congress seated January 5th, when the Republicans would have had much more leverage and bargaining power. Instead, they chose to rush things through precisely because they could - and because being members of the Ruling Class, it suited them.
I am not a party man, and I suspect that a lot of the independents that flocked to the Republican banner in this last election share that distinction with me. I see the GOP as having a core of patriotic and sensible men and women capable of bringing this country back to the principles our Founders based this great nation on, something the Democrats, especially the current party leadership unfortunately lack.
Even more important, it's already in place and it would be far less timely to change it and utilize it than it would be to create a brand new structure. But if that's going to happen and the GOP is worth preserving, some fundamental changes need to take place.
The Republicans may think that the 2010 midterms constituted a mandate. It was actually a last chance based on the fact the alternative was unacceptable, and act of faith that was very similar to the 2004 elections when the American people gave George W. Bush and the GOP an opportunity to run with the ball.
Bush and his Republican cohorts fumbled badly, and it took six years and an abysmally bad Democrat Congress and President along Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint keeping the Tea Party inside the GOP tent in order for the American people to be willing to give them another shot. If they fumble this time, I doubt the Republicans will ever be trusted again...and a new party will have to be built from scratch.
Here's what needs to happen:
The Party needs to change its orientation towards populism and end its identification with the ruling political class. Put another way, the GOP needs to point a lot more towards the Tea party and a lot less towards the Beltway.
This is much less hard than it seems as , contrary to popular belief, it is the Democrats who are the party of millionaires and special interests, thriving on large funding from the likes of people like George Soros, Goldman Sachs, Peter Lewis, the Tides Foundation, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the trial lawyers and the public employee unions.
The Republican support comes disproportionately from farmers and businessmen, the military, the Tea Party, workers in private enterprise and industrialists involved in trade, commodities and manufacturing.
To alter it's stance, the GOP needs to be much more focused on bread and butter issues - school choice, national defense, lower taxes and regulations, smaller more efficient government, energy creation (particularly where it concerns coal, oil, and nuclear power), manufacturing and fair trade, and restructuring or in some cases eliminating the vast network of entitlements and unfunded mandates along with the vast and costly bureaucracy that services it.
Instead of backroom deals, the .new Republican Party must pledge itself to openness. In short, they must be prepared not only to stand on principle but to articulate those principles in a way that communicates itself to the electorate.
Paul Ryan's plan is a decent start in this direction.
At the same time, the Party needs to set a personal example of thrift, common sense and probity. To quote Sarah Palin, it needs approach government 'with a servant's heart'.
That last is the most difficult, as a number of Beltway Republicans have absorbed the culture of decadence that permeates Washington and identify themselves as part of the Ruling class at this point. Abandoning that mentality is not merely a matter of ideology - it goes beyond labels like 'conservative' or 'liberal' but to the core of how these people see themselves. Someone like Susan Collins of Maine keeps getting re-elected handily in a Blue state precisely because she identifies with her constituents and is personally honest and hard working. A long time Robert Bennett of Utah got voted out in the primary in a Red State where his party dominates precisely because his constituents ceased to trust him and felt he no longer represented them any more.
Some will change...and some will have change thrust upon 'em, to paraphrase Shakespeare.
The Party's political leadership needs to be replaced and its local grass roots nurtured and revitalized. The Republican National Committee,(RNC) The National Republican Congressional Committee(NRCC) and the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) need fresh, behind the scenes faces who are much more adept at raising funds and efficiently utilizing those funds to put together local ground games and Get Out The Vote efforts.
If those had been in place in 2010, the Republicans would probably have picked up another half dozen seats in the House and at least two more Senate seats.
Contrary to popular belief, it wasn't Hispanics who cost Sharron Angle the election, but the white vote, which she lost precisely because she had no experienced organization on the ground - whereas Harry Reid imported thousands of Democrat sturmabteilung and millions in cash for a massive GOTV push in the last few days of the campaign while Angle, running her first state-wide race, was left to stumble through trying to put together a ground game without any major support from the RNC. Not only was she outspent, but she was deprived of the kind of experienced professional party foot soldiers she needed to help her win that kind of campaign.
Instead, the RNC under the execrable 'leadership' of Michael Steele wound up spending its money on Steele's five star, self-promoting lifestyle.
That was not lost on GOP donors, and they will no longer tolerate that kind of mismanagement.
Nor will they tolerate Party giving its imprimatur to the sort of typical Republican 'establishment' type candidates it did in2010. The party will have to be a lot less hospitable, generally speaking, to the Charlie Crists and a lot more open to the Marco Rubios. Charismatic, well spoken conservatives who articulate their message usually win, as opposed to candidates who are essentially Democrat-lite.
The GOP needs to reach out much more to Hispanics and Blacks...but in the proper way.
The Republican Party is absolutely capable of picking up at least half of the Latino vote and an increasing share of the Black vote, provided they approach them honestly and stand on principle. To do that, they must take an approach diametrically opposite to the Democrats.
Both communities have a sizeable companent of exactly the sort of people who should be voting Republican, especially Latinos. Many of them are religious, family oriented, and interested in issues like education, school choice, crime, and economic prosperity for themselves and their children.
These are natural issues for conservatives to approach them on, and what it will take is candidates who can articulate precisely and directly how the Democrat's social welfare schemes have effected these communities negatively and how conservative principles would benefit them.
A Black or Latino working family concerned about crime in their neighborhoods, failing public schools, declining employment opportunities and the fact that less and less of their hard earned money ends up in their pockets and more and more of it ends up in the government's hands are a natural audience for this message.
And the natural place to deliver this messages in the churches, where many social issues like abortion and gay marriage are also likely to resonate. If I were running for Congress and I had Black and Latino constituents, that's exactly where I'd start.
An honest stance on the differences in the two parties on national defense is another wedge issue, as both communities instinctively support our military because so many of them have family members who serve. There are more Americans of Hispanic descent who have been awarded the Medal of Honor than any other ethnic group, and the Republican approach to Veteran's Affairs, military pay and benefits and national security is a winner here. I wonder, has any GOP candidate told an Hispanic audience how Barack Obama tried to take away the VA benefits from wounded vets and make them buy their own private healthcare?
Even the immigration issue is a potential winner. A lot of Hispanics readily understand, or can be made to understand that amnestia merely results in an unending flow of illegal aliens and keeps taxes high, wages low and services costly and over-extended..and that border security is a national security issue, not an immigration issue.
And has anyone in the GOP ever articulated a message on Spanish media about any of these issues? Have they attempted to reach out honestly to Blacks and Hispanics in their own communities,not to pander but make an honest appeal based on principle, self-interest and mutual success?That needs to happen, and if it's done right it will be successful.
The Republican Party stands at a crossroads. They can become the party of freedom, integrity and independence they were meant to be or they can continue along the same old road and become history.
The choice is theirs. Let's hope they make the right one.
Senate Ratifies START Treaty
By a vote of 71-26 this afternoon, the Lame Duck Senate ratified the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), exceeding the two-thirds majority required for passage.
In a major show of disrespect, 14 Republican Senators defied party leaders Mitch McConnell and John Kyl to vote with the Democrats - Indiana's Dick Lugar, Ohio’s outgoing senator George Voinovich, Utah’s outgoing Bob Bennett, Tennessee’s two senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, Mississippi’s Thad Cochran (the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations panel), Georgia’s Johnny Isakson, Massachusetts’s Scott Brown, New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg, Maine’s two senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, and Nebraska’s Mike Johanns.
This is the first time a major treaty like this has ever been voted on in a Lame Duck session. There was absolutely no reason not to hold this over until th enew Congress seated.
We've essentially traded missile defense and downgraded our nuclear deterrent in exchange for a flawed verification process.
Obama Administration To Issue 'Indefinite Detention' Executive Order for Gitmo Detainees
My, how things have changed!
The president who campaigned on the vow that he would close our detention center for jihadis at Guantanamo is now preparing an executive order that would formalize indefinite detention without trial for them.
The jihadis will be allowed to challenge their incarceration, of course. But it will be in front of military tribunals, not civilian courts.
Originally, Obama's plan was to transfer detainees to a facility in the United States and to try them in civilian courts.After the fiasco at the trial of US embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani, the opposition to a New York City civilian court trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and the stats on how many Club Gitmo detainees we released returned to the jihad, even President Obama finally realized his mistake.
Of course, he's not going to admit it. Imagine a president who had the sense of honor to admit that an argument he used to demonize his predecessor was completely mistaken, and that the man he demonized was right all along....
The president who campaigned on the vow that he would close our detention center for jihadis at Guantanamo is now preparing an executive order that would formalize indefinite detention without trial for them.
The jihadis will be allowed to challenge their incarceration, of course. But it will be in front of military tribunals, not civilian courts.
Originally, Obama's plan was to transfer detainees to a facility in the United States and to try them in civilian courts.After the fiasco at the trial of US embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani, the opposition to a New York City civilian court trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and the stats on how many Club Gitmo detainees we released returned to the jihad, even President Obama finally realized his mistake.
Of course, he's not going to admit it. Imagine a president who had the sense of honor to admit that an argument he used to demonize his predecessor was completely mistaken, and that the man he demonized was right all along....
Watcher's Coucil Nominations - Pre-Christmas Edition
Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.
And now, a little Christmas music to set the mood:
So, let's see what we have this week....
Council Submissions
- Simply Jews – WikiLeaks as a Zionist tool
- The Razor – Michael Vick and redemption
- Joshuapundit -A Few Final Thoughts On Gays In The Military And DADT
- Right Truth – Muslims Gaming the System for Terror
- The Colossus of Rhodey – Heinleinian wisdom
- The Glittering Eye -Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One (Christmas Edition)
- GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Imperial! By Design
- Rhymes With Right – Michael Moore Invokes Clinton Doctrine In Assange Case
- VA Right - Reinstate ‘Don’T Ask, Don’t Tell’ in 2012
- Bookworm Room – It takes a bureaucracy to kill a bureaucracy
- Snapped Shot – The Giant Television Speaks
Non-Council Submissions
- Confessions of a Closet Republican – Muslim Family In Spain Denounces Teacher For Offending Son- Or, Talking About Ham Is A No-No submitted by Simply Jews
- Jim Quinn, Minyanville – Any Talk of Recovery Is False submitted by The Razor
- Lee Stranahan / Big Government: – Pigford: How To Get $50K From The Government For 'Attempting To Farm' submitted by Joshuapundit
- Samson Blinded - Why Not Kill The Terrorists submitted by Right Truth
- Culture and Media Institute – It's All Your Fault submitted by Christmas Without Christ
- Via Meadia/Walter Russel Mead – Give The People What They Want submitted by The Glittering Eye
- Atlas Shrugs – Bolton 2012 submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
- Christopher Hitchens – Are we committed to Afghanistan or to Hamid Karzai's government?submitted by Rhymes with Right
- The Pagan Temple – Bow Ye Infidels To The Goddess Of Chocolate submitted by The Watcher
- Seraphic Secrets – Harry Potter Actress Beaten and Branded a Prostitute by Her Family After Dating a Non-Muslim… submitted by The Watcher
Enjoy!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Porn Around The World...And In America
This is an interesting sidebar to the current debate about 'net neutrality' and internet freedom. One of the big selling points of those whom favor it is outlawing online porn 'for the children'.
Of course, as we all know, it wouldn't stop there. The next targets would be sites that disseminate information or criticism not to the liking of the ruling class, which is why so many Democrat 'liberals' strongly favor this kind of censorship by diktat. And the UN, dominated by the Organization of Islamic Conference and the Muslim bloc is probably wetting its collective pants in excitement at the thought of censoring sites that offer any criticism of Islam.
The argument that regulating the net 'for the children' doesn't hold water either.
As any concerned parent knows, some intelligent monitoring along with a proper moral education goes a long way towards solving the problem when it comes to kids, and if you're unwilling to put in that effort there are numerous kinds of filtering software you can buy. Also, most internet providers make such filtering available if you request it by use of passwords for unrestricted access and there are even internet providers available who specialize in such filtering .
No, this is about more than pornography.
And speaking of porn, the above map shows how porn laws are administered around the world. Some interesting oddities:
Just as with homosexuals, there are Islamists who make a practice of tracking, targeting and killing those who indulge.
And what about the land of the Free and the home of the brave?
This map shows the percentage of residents per state who own a paid online porn subscription. Mississippi, Utah and Alaska top the list...and I have to admit,I found the percentages for some of the states surprising.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Rep. Peter King On Radical Islam In America
As I reported previously, the new chair of the House Homeland Security Committee will be none other than Rep Peter King (R NY)and his first order of business will be to investigate how Muslims in America are radicalized.
In this NewsDay editorial, Rep. King goes in detail on the matter:
[...] So what's the story that CAIR and the mainstream media aren't telling you?
In the days following 9/11, I made several television and radio appearances supporting American Muslims, saying that they had nothing to do with the attacks and were as loyal and patriotic as any Americans. I particularly warned that we could not do to Muslims what was done to Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor.
Even today I cannot begin to describe the disappointment, anger and outrage I felt when, barely a month after those attacks that killed so many hundreds of Long Islanders, prominent Long Island Muslim leaders were insisting there was no evidence that al-Qaida was responsible for the attacks - even saying it could have been the CIA, the FBI or the Zionists!
Even more troubling is that to this day, no Muslim leader has denounced those vile remarks. Nor did Newsday say a word about these slanders - no moral outrage or condemnation. No demand for an apology or even an explanation.
As I became more immersed in attempting to unravel the radical Islamic threat to our nation and our civilization, it became more and more obvious to me that the moral myopia of Long Island's Muslim leaders and their apologists in the media was the rule - and that there were few exceptions.
Federal and local law enforcement officials throughout the country told me they received little or - in most cases - no cooperation from Muslim leaders and imams.
This noncooperation was perilous enough in the years following 9/11, when the main Islamist threat to the homeland emanated from overseas. Fortunately, that aspect of the jihadist threat has subsided because of the effective counterterrorism infrastructure constructed by the Bush administration. [...}
Al-Qaida has adjusted to this new reality and is recruiting Muslims living legally in the United States - homegrown terrorists who have managed to stay under the anti-terror radar screen. This is why the hearings I will hold next year are so critical.
The great majority of Muslims in our country are hardworking, dedicated Americans. Yet a Pew Poll showed that 15 percent of Muslim Americans between 18 and 29 say suicide bombing is justified. I also know of imams instructing members of their mosques not to cooperate with law enforcement officials investigating the recruiting of young men in their mosques as suicide bombers. We need to find the reasons for this alienation.
There's a disconnect between outstanding Muslims who contribute so much to the future of our country and those leaders who - for whatever reason - acquiesce in terror or ignore the threat. It is this disconnect that threatens the security of us all.
As chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, I will do all I can to break down the wall of political correctness and drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization. These hearings will be a step in that direction. It's what democracy is all about.
Of course, what Rep. King and the Committee will find if they actually go into this honestly is that the key is not al-Qaeda, but our friends the Saudis and the hundreds of millions of dollars they spend supporting Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR, financing radical wahabi and Muslim Brotherhood friendly imams, mosques and madrassahs and yes - buying politicians, academics, diplomats and other government officials like fruit at the market. That's done by financing presidential libraries, academic chairs and tax free foundations, six figure speech and 'consulting' fees and even preferential business deals like the one that made Bill Clinton a multi-millionaire after he left office.
This has been obvious for some time now, and it will be interesting to see if King and the Committee actually decide to go there.
France To Target Muslim Takeover of Streets For Public Prayer
Many of you have seen the widely circulated videos of certain streets in Paris and elsewhere in France becoming de facto no go zones for non-Muslims as Muslim worshipers turn them into what amounts to mosques by taking them over during prayer times.
There have been widespread public complaints, but thus far police have not intervened because they fear sparking civil unrest.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to outlaw this practice, saying that it undermines the French secular tradition separating state and religion.
Sarkozy's announcement comes after a major furor in France over remarks made by by Marine Le Pen of the National Front Party, who compared the situation to the wartime occupation of France.
"For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it's about occupation, then we could also talk about (that), because that is occupation of territory," she said at a political rally in Lyons.
"There are, of course, no tanks, there are no soldiers but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents," she said.
Her remarks sparked outrage among France's Left and among Muslims who accused her of racism, but met with wide approval elsewhere.
Marine Le Pen, who is expected to take over leadership of the National Front from her father, the elderly Jean-Marie Le Pen, has become an increasingly popular figure in France as she continues to put out a message that resonated with much of the French public; that France has been betrayed by its elites and inundated with unassimilated Muslims hostile to traditional French values.
According to one poll, Marine Le Pen's approval rating has risen to 33 per cent, only three points behind President Sarkozy's.
Sarkozy himself has enacted policies to make up political ground in this area...banning the burka in public, cracking down on 'immigrant' ( read 'Muslim') crime in the banlieus and deporting both Muslims and Roma found to be residing illegally in France.
If Le Pen continues to gain political ground, it's quite possible we could see a coalition government with Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)that contains the National Front or even a merging of the two parties.
France, like most parliamentary democracies has multiple parties but for their presidential elections, the French hold a general election and then a run off of the two candidates with the highest popular vote.
Ironically, it was Marine Le Pen's father who finished a surprise second to Jaques Chirac in the elections of 2002, eliminating Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate.
The next election in 2012 could see an interesting battle between an alliance of the Right and an alliance of the Red and Black - the Socialists and Muslims.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Hilarious! Jon Stewart Interviews 'Muppet' Michael Steele
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Absolutely laugh-out-loud funnneee!
UPDATE: First Hand Account By Surviving Victim Of Jerusalem Terrorist Attack
This is the only first hand account I've seen yet from Kaye Susan Wilson, the survivor of the Jerusalem terrorist attack that took her friend Kristine Logan's life:
According to Wilson, after accosting them and tying them up one of Arabs took out a long knife which she described looking "like a bread knife with a serrated edge." (RM- probably something akin to a K-Bar)
"I was scared but my friend became hysterical. I told her in English to be quiet and not make noise," Wilson said. The men then began to stab both Wilson and Logan.
"It was clear that they came to kill.," Wilson recalled from her hospital bed. "Who carries around a knife life that?"
"I had a Star of David hanging on a chain around my neck," Wilson told Haaretz. "He took it off like a gentleman and then turned me around and stabbed in the place where the Star of David had been."
"I saw that the stab had not penetrated my heart and I played dead. While I lay there I could hear my friend dying. Her breath sounded like bubbles. I waited two minutes, we lay in the corridor. Our hands tied behind our backs and something was covering my mouth. It was terribly hard for me to get up but I managed to go. I saw that we were in a bush area and I did not know then that they had fled. I felt myself getting tired, all I wanted to do was sleep but I knew I could not."
When Wilson managed to reach the parking lot she noticed a car with Israeli license plates. Its occupants were looking over at her, she said. "I couldn't scream because of my breathing and the car had started to leave.
So I had to go another 20 meters, and there were kids there; I didn't want to scare them with blood, so I just turned around with my back to them, so they could see my hands ties. And then they called the police."
Wilson sustained twelve stab wounds in the attack and is a moderate condition.
According to Wilson, after accosting them and tying them up one of Arabs took out a long knife which she described looking "like a bread knife with a serrated edge." (RM- probably something akin to a K-Bar)
"I was scared but my friend became hysterical. I told her in English to be quiet and not make noise," Wilson said. The men then began to stab both Wilson and Logan.
"It was clear that they came to kill.," Wilson recalled from her hospital bed. "Who carries around a knife life that?"
"I had a Star of David hanging on a chain around my neck," Wilson told Haaretz. "He took it off like a gentleman and then turned me around and stabbed in the place where the Star of David had been."
"I saw that the stab had not penetrated my heart and I played dead. While I lay there I could hear my friend dying. Her breath sounded like bubbles. I waited two minutes, we lay in the corridor. Our hands tied behind our backs and something was covering my mouth. It was terribly hard for me to get up but I managed to go. I saw that we were in a bush area and I did not know then that they had fled. I felt myself getting tired, all I wanted to do was sleep but I knew I could not."
When Wilson managed to reach the parking lot she noticed a car with Israeli license plates. Its occupants were looking over at her, she said. "I couldn't scream because of my breathing and the car had started to leave.
So I had to go another 20 meters, and there were kids there; I didn't want to scare them with blood, so I just turned around with my back to them, so they could see my hands ties. And then they called the police."
Wilson sustained twelve stab wounds in the attack and is a moderate condition.
UPDATE: Kidnapped American Woman Found Murdered By Arabs In Jerusalem
The kidnapped American woman's body who was attacked by Arabs while hiking with a friend in a forest near Jerusalem has been found.
Kristine Logan's body was found tied and stabbed south of Mata, approximately 400 meters from the road between Mata and Beit Shemesh, police said.
Her companion, Kaye Susan Wilson escaped, reportedly by pretending to be dead after her Arab attackers stabbed her.She was found with her hands tied and several stab wounds in her chest and back but managed to escape her attackers. She told police that two Arabs had tied her hands, stabbed her and left her for dead. After they left, she was able to reach a parking lot in Mata, where she was able to find help from passersby.
After Wilson was found, the Jerusalem police and the IDF launched a massive manhunt overnight Saturday to try and find Luken.
Since Wilson is an Israeli citizen originally from the UK and Luken was an American, the police speculated that she might have been kidnapped by 'Palestinians' to ransom for convicted terrorists in Israeli jails.
The 'Palestinians' may have decided to murder Luken once they realized she was not Israeli.Or they may simply have realized that they would be unable to escape with her.
“We are still looking at all directions, still continuing the investigation, and questioning people who may have seen them,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
One of my contacts in Israel reports that Jean Evans, a very pro-Israel Christian in the UK wrote him saying, "I have just heard that both were committed Christians and friends of my great friends Vicar of Christchurch Jaffa Gate".
Sad. Infinitely sad.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
A Few Final Thoughts On Gays In The Military And DADT
'Don't Ask Don't Tell' was always a stop gap policy, a typical bit of Clinton-esque nonsense that was neither fish nor fowl and as such was always destined to be spewed out of the nation's collective mouth.Either homosexuals were eventually going to be allowed to serve openly in the military,or they were going to be banned again.
So, DADT is officially history. As I revealed earlier, one of my notorious Little Birdies who was definitely in a position to know told me that this was a trade off in exchange for Obama successfully getting the Democrat Lame Ducks in the House to vote to extend the Bush tax cuts.
Will it lead to a deterioration of our military's primary mission, which is defending the country and killing our enemies? I doubt it, although I would have liked to see a much more thorough assessment by the military to see what the actual impact would be, particularly in combat situations and in re-enlistments.I also have my concerns about the military spending an inordinate amount of time and money on things like diversity and sensitivity training, quotas ('Oh my, there aren't enough gay officers or NCO's') or the rest of the kind of PC nonsense that goes with it. Let's hope not...the IDF, the Australians and several other very competent militaries allow homosexuals to serve openly without descending to that kind of insanity.
But two other things come to mind.
Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia, Yale, Stanford and a slew of other so-called elite colleges have long used DADT as their excuse to ban ROTC programs and military recruiters from their campuses. Now that DADT has been repealed, are they going to change their policies? And will we really see that many aspirants to the Ruling Class volunteering to serve? I doubt it, considering what most of their professors are teaching them, but we'll see.
And one last observation. Given how Islam and sharia treat homosexuals, I would now expect a massive turnout of able bodied gays to enlist in our military to kill jihadis. That is, if they're thinking about their own self-preservation.
If that happens, the repeal of DADT might just turn out quite well.
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