Tuesday, March 27, 2007
I recently installed the virus detection system from PC Security Shield. I found it to be crap. It progressively disabled my access to all sorts of sites and applications. The first sign of trouble was when I could no longer access YouTube videos. I put up with that for a few days but when it got to the point that I could no longer create a new document I deleted the whole thing. And, hey presto! Everything is working again. I emailed the firm concerned but received unhelpful form-letters in reply only. They promise a refund to dissatisfied customers but my request for one was met with a crashing silence.
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Islam Expert: Netherlands Tolerates Muslim Excesses
Dutch politicians and media are downplaying excesses of multicultural society and thereby increasing these, in the view of Islam expert Hans Janssen. "The Netherlands should resist, using non-peaceful means", he argues in weekly magazine Opinio.
Jansen, Professor of Modern Islamic Ideology at Utrecht University, characterizes the Dutch as inhabitants of "a peaceful enclave" who have, however, "forgotten that peace sometimes needs to be defended through violence". A peaceful society that wishes to remain existent and stay peaceful "will have to find a way to defend itself through non-peaceful means from people who are not peaceful", as the Arabist writes. "It will be hard to explaining this convincingly to all those respectable and friendly people in the (Christian coalition parties) CDA and ChristenUnie. And to the rest."
As Jansen sees it, the Netherlands is too indulgent to violence of fundamentalist Muslims. But he also suggests that moderate Muslims, too, strive after an Islamic society in the Netherlands. They intentionally make use of the radicals to enforce their wishes, according to the Arabist.
According to Jansen, Muslim fundamentalists frequently make threats, but the Dutch media remain silent about them. He is pleading for a central reporting station for all Dutch people who are being threatened.
Source
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Articles recently up on ICJS
BGU President Disses Overseas Donors
Zionism in the Age of Dictators
Liberalism a luxury during war
Concert
Jews against Zion
Liberty fades as rights talk grows
University accused of censoring anti-Semitic Islam lecture
Et tu, BBC?
Islamicization of Antwerp
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ELSEWHERE
I rarely post to my Leftists as Elitists blog these days but I have just posted there a story I could not pass up.
The pathetic EU anniversary: "Equally mysterious is why the European Union is so pleased with itself. The fiftieth anniversary bash held in Germany at the weekend has been an odious spectacle. It was a politically correct modern version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. That one of the exhibits on display was a collection of cakes from the 27 member states was accidentally appropriate, since this is an organisation sharing Marie Antoinette's attitude towards its "citizens". It was bizarre to witness political leaders acting as if they were attending a celebrity birthday party. Though the occasion symbolised a collective detachment from reality, it contained a message within the pious "Declaration of Berlin" that was formally launched yesterday. The heirs to Thomas Jefferson will have no reason to fear the competition from this. The text is turgid and it is contains near-comic double-talk"
More media deception: "On March 17, I noticed that Bud Cummins, one of the fired U.S. Attorneys, had directly contradicted the major premise of an L.A. Times article published about him. It's now been over a week, and the paper has done nothing to correct the record. It appears clear to me that they aren't going to tell their readers that the subject of an article has publicly claimed that the central premise of the article was wrong. If you're looking for an L.A. Times scandal, you've found it. This nonsense about Andres Martinez isn't a scandal. Hiding the truth from your readers is. On March 16, the L.A. Times published a story titled Cummins fears corruption investigation led to his firing. The article said that Cummins had looked into allegations relating to potential corruption by Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. It quoted Cummins as speculating that this investigation may have had something to do with his being fired: "Now I keep asking myself: `What about the Blunt deal?'" In an e-mail to TPM Muckraker, Cummins said that The Times got it wrong: "Unfortunately, that isn't what I said, or at least what I intended to say, and it is not the case."
Reality dawns in Quebec: "With three days left in one of the most tightly contested elections in decades, Quebec's electoral officer yesterday reversed his decision to allow Muslim women to vote without having to lift their face veils to identify themselves. Chief Electoral Officer Marcel Blanchet invoked emergency powers to change his mind on one of the controversial minority-rights issues that have roiled the campaign and led to death threats, public outrage and repeated criticism by Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair. Mr. Blanchet said his office had been inundated with calls and emails about his decision to allow women to wear the niqab when they voted. His staff was worried and he was assigned two bodyguards. He feared some angry voters would turn out "in the craziest disguises you can imagine" and disrupt Monday's election."
No brakes on Soros spending: "The following is a statement by Mark Fitzgibbons and GrassrootsFreedom.com, regarding grassroots legislation currently being considered by Congress as part of lobbying reform: “George Soros-financed Open Society Institute, a 501(c)(3) ‘private operating foundation,’ spent nearly $65 million financing mostly left-leaning 501(c)(3)s that engage in lobbying and/or public policy advocacy in just 2005 alone according to its tax return, IRS Form 990 available at Guidestar.com. “The attached partial list of recipients of this ‘largesse’ shows the distinct political, lobbying and public policy purposes of these expenditures, including (1) influencing judicial nominations, (2) advocating for gay marriage, looser immigration and social security legislation, (3) taxpayer-financed elections and (4) gaining more ideological control of the news media. “None of these lobbying and grassroots expenditures would be disclosed under the grassroots legislation written by lobbyists and being considered by Congress, even though the organizations that receive Soros’ financing clearly ‘influence’ the general public and Congress to take action on policy, legislation and judicial nominations. Yet other citizen-supported grassroots causes communicating on the same issues would be required to track their expenditures, report them quarterly to Congress, and would be subject to civil and potential criminal penalties based simply on the exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as the right of citizens to petition the government."
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here
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Monday, March 26, 2007
The BBC has been accused of "shameful hypocrisy" over its decision to spend 200,000 pounds blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East. The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.
BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public. The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.
BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias. The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.
The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent. Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible".
Source
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Brookes News Update
US economy: will a housing bust cause a recession?: Last month the Fed reported that factory production and the output of mines and utilities leapt by 1.0 per cent. This is a big figure - and an important one. If the higher stages of production are still expanding then the country is not yet on the verge of a recession
Tony Abbot and the Liberal Party screw up again on labour market reform: The Liberal Party, including Tony Abbot, was provided with the necessary information to defeat the critics of reform. For some reason the Liberals refused to use it. The result is that opponents of reform have been given more opportunities to try and discredit it
Another Murdoch journalist slimes the Iraq War while giving leftwing thugs a pass: Matt Price - a columnist with The Australian - smeared Libby, Cheney and Prime Minister Howard. But when it came to Vietnam's murderous regime and sadistic terrorists the heroic Mr Price had nothing to say
Castro loves hippie software: Software guru Richard Stallman founded Free SoftWare Foundation. Was a recent guest of honor of Castro's Stalinist regime. True to form, Stallman embraced the regime that jails the most journalist per capita on planet earth. So while people were being tortured in Castro's gulag Stallman was praising the torturers while ignoring the plight of their victims
The US and Australia: are their foreign debts a problem?: Our economic commentariat refuses to even consider the role monetary policy plays in distorting the pattern of production, destabilising exchange rates and creating balance of payments crises. It's as if they would rather the economy sank than admit they were wrong
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ELSEWHERE
As Al Capone said: "Vote early and vote often": "Muslim women wearing the niqab or burka - veils that hide the face entirely - will be allowed to vote in the Quebec elections, without showing their face. That's the directive from the Director general of elections, despite the fact it goes against the electoral law. Typically a voter is to present photo-I.D. But women wearing a full-face veil will have to either swear that they are who they say they are - or have an adult with them verifying their identity."
Anti-semitism rules come in at British universities: "Measures to tackle antisemitism in British universities will be unveiled this week amid concern about rising discrimination. The government will warn vice-chancellors they must not ignore antiJewish activity on campuses and must prevent prejudiced lecturers, guest speakers and extremist political organisations stirring up hatred against Israel. A recent Commons report highlighted attacks on undergraduates, a lack of respect by lecturers and tutors for the needs of observant Jewish students and a growing tolerance of extreme language against Israel during student debates on the Middle East. There is particular concern about so-called "Islamic" antisemitism, with radical Muslim clerics, or their followers, being allowed to preach antiJewish hatred in universities".
The dreaded Wal-Mart has now opened a store just outside Washington, D.C.: "Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened its first store inside the Capital Beltway yesterday. The Landover Hills store, the closest to the District, is the chain's latest store in an urban setting. Nationwide, Wal-Mart is focusing on urban locations such as the District, Chicago and Atlanta for new customers as it saturates rural and suburban areas... The store will have an expansive selection of Hispanic groceries -- such as Goya beans and rice -- and a broader collection of Latin, gospel and R&B music. The store also carries Wal-Mart's urban clothing line, Exsto, in addition to its Metro 7 and George private clothing lines.... The store will have 330 employees, and it received more than 11,000 applications, Mr. Restivo said. He said he didn't have information on how many employees are from Prince George's County. Wal-Mart said last month that the Landover Hills store will be one of 10 urban areas it planned to help revitalize with jobs and small-business assistance."
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Sunday, March 25, 2007
Yet another one of my websites has gone out of existence. Background: I have always had a website in webspace provided by my ISP but one does of course lose that if one changes to another ISP. And some ISP websites I have known have had big glitches that make them of only limited use. So I have always had "backup" websites with my writings on them. But the backup sites nearly all seem to be run by arrogant nerds who feel free to delete a customer's account any time they like. And they do like. I have never tried to keep track of it all but there must be about 10 addresses where my writings once appeared but which now just give an error message. The latest such is here.
I have enquired why the site just mentioned was deleted but got only a form-letter reply that gave me no clue about what my sin was in their eyes. The fact that I occasionally mention the most obscene four letter word of the modern age -- "r*ce" -- probably accounts for a lot of the cancellations I have had. Using that word makes me guilty of "hate speech" of course and webspace providers usually seem to have a "policy" about that. That I use the word in a scholarly way is obviously too deep a distinction for a lot of nerds.
The most reliable hosting service for me has in fact been blogspot -- though they go offline for a short while every now and then. Anyway, I cope with the unreliability of it all by putting up multiple copies of everything I write in different places on the net. So if my writings cease to be available in one place they will still be available somewhere else. The three "home pages" I list at the bottom of all postings here are all to sites that DO currently work most of the time and that do have most of my writings on them. So if at first you don't succeed, don't keep trying: try another one!
If blogspot ever bans me that will be pretty pesky (they DO delete blogs on "hate speech" grounds. See e.g. here) so keep handy a link to my only Wordpress blog -- IMMIGRATION WATCH -- in case that happens. I will use the Wordpress site to redirect readers to new non-blogspot sites in case that should ever be needed. The owners of blogspot are of course G*ogle -- which is why I generally mention their name in modified form only. I want to be as far below their radar as possible. They DO run searches to see what people are saying about them. There are around 1500 other blogs that link to Dissecting Leftism alone so all those links would become dead if blogspot got nasty with me.
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BEND OVER ATLANTA
Post below lifted from Boortz
OK .. here's the way it works:
- Steve learns to weld.
- Steve would rather be an artist than working in a machine shop
- Steve obtains some scrap metal and starts welding it together in odd shapes which he declares to be art.
- Steve can't find anyone who will voluntarily pay for the piles of scrap metal he has welded together.
- Steve changes his name to Stephano and drops his last name.
- Still nobody will buy Stephano's art, though there is one Buckhead matron who has taken a rather prurient interest in some of Stephan's other talents.
- The Buckhead matron allows Stephano to place a pile of scrap metal in her garden and begins to refer to it as a sculpture.
- Buckhead socialites, after encountering Stephano's "sculpture", and desiring to pander to the matron's artistic tastes, decide that Stephan is being greatly wronged because nobody will pay him for his artistic efforts.
- The buzz among the Buckhead social set is heard in the halls of the Atlanta City Council and the arts community.
- A sense of anger builds that we have yet another artist in our midst who simply cannot manage to find a willing buyer in a free market environment.
- Stephano and his backers become increasingly frustrated with the lack of respect the great unwashed have for his artistic talents.
- The arts community -- which, by the way, won't buy any of Stephano's art either -- tells Atlanta's political leaders that Atlanta simply cannot survive or be considered a world class international city unless Stephano's "art" is displayed citywide.
- A plan is hatched to use the police power of the Atlanta city government to fun the purchase of Stephano's piles of junk.
- The city seizes money from residents and writes some fat checks to Stephano for more artwork.
- Stephano, no longer needing to service the needs of the Buckhead matron, tells her to find another cabana boy.
- Atlanta residents wake up one morning wondering when someone is going to come along and remove those piles of scrap metal someone left in their neighborhood overnight.
This scenario, or something very close to it, is playing out in Atlanta right now. A task force appointed by the Mayor has determined that Atlanta needs a cultural investment fund in the amount of at least $10 million that will provide money to artists, arts organizations and what it refers to as "cultural organizations." The suggestion is that there should be a tax on businesses operating in Atlanta to provide the funds. The story in this morning's Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that "Many of those who work in the arts in Atlanta said they hope to see some progress on arts funding soon."
At this point you shouldn't need a translation of that quote from the AJC. But then again, many of you went to government schools, so I'll provide that translation for you. Many of the people in the arts community in Atlanta remain frustrated by the fact that Atlanta residents will not voluntarily pay for their art. So, of the Atlanta residents won't voluntarily buy their art, the government should step in and make them buy the art by seizing their money and transferring that money to artists and arts organizations.
And what about this idea of placing a special tax on Atlanta businesses? What we have here is the arts community taking advantage of the ignorance of our government-educated residents. They know that many people think that if the tax is placed on the businesses this means that the rank and file Atlantans won't be paying for the art. Sadly, they're possibly right. Our education is so pathetic that most people can't noodle out the fact that all taxes paid by businesses are passed on to the consumers of whatever service or goods they sell.
When I was driving from the Charlottesville, Virginia airport into downtown Charlottesville yesterday I noticed many piles of scrap metal scattered around the local highways and biways. No ... seriously. I did! I learned later that this is all from a taxpayer-funded program called "Arts In Place." You should have heard the shouts of approval from the audience at the Charlottesville Omni ballroom last night when I made a less-than-complimentary comment about this "art." Then I wake up this morning to see that the welfare artists in Atlanta are after even more of our money.
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ELSEWHERE
I have just put up another lot of postings from Chris Brand on his usual highly "incorrect" themes.
German decay?: "Germany – A German judge has stirred a storm of protest by citing the Koran in turning down a request for a speedy divorce from a Muslim woman who said her husband beat her. In a ruling that underlines the tension between Muslim customs and European laws, the judge, Christa Datz-Winter, noted that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu, in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives. The Koran sanctions such physical abuse, she wrote in her decision. News of the ruling brought swift and sharp condemnation from politicians, legal experts and Muslim leaders in Germany, many of whom said they were confounded that a German judge would put seventh-century Islamic religious teaching ahead of German law in deciding a case of domestic violence. The court in Frankfurt abruptly removed Datz-Winter from the case Wednesday, saying it could not justify her reasoning."
Duke case ending: "It seems that the trumped-up charges against three young men who played for the la crosse team at Duke University will be dismissed either today or sometime next week. That will mostly end their ordeal, though they'll still have to deal with millions of dollars in legal fees (which, in the end, the city of Durham, N.C., will probably have to pick up). The same can't be said of their false accuser - who is in a world of trouble, since you're not supposed to make false accusations to the authorities. But her dire fate will seem positively sunny compared to that of Durham DA Mike Nifong - who is certain to be sued for defamation, likely to be disbarred and very possibly charged with an open-and-shut case of perjury that could land him in jail for a long time. Yet some of the most disgraceful actors in this case will go unpunished. I'm referring to a huge cohort of the professors at the top-flight university attended by the three unjustly accused men. Some 88 of them - more than 10 percent of the entire Duke professoriat - engaged in a shocking rush to judgment in the weeks following the party where the accuser falsely alleged she had been raped... Since the academic work of those who organized the ad centers around the notion that the white male power structure subjugates and violates all those who are neither white nor male, the case was actually a dream come true for them." [Dr Sanity has some good comments]
Baby bottles now a terror weapon: "Fanatical terror suspect Abdula Ahmed Ali, 25, and his wife, Cossor, 23, are among those being interrogated by police as suspects in the massive plot to attack trans-Atlantic flights in midair. What the outwardly normal couple had secretly plotted is almost too horrifying to consider, cops said. The Alis planned to use 6-month-old son Zain's baby bottle as a liquid bomb, blowing themselves and their child up, along with hundreds of others aboard the flight... The baby was later turned over to her grandparents."
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Post below lifted from Dan Mandel
When war against Saddam's Iraq was proposed in 2002, a key component of the opponents’ case was to assert that dismantling Saddam’s regime would bring more death and destabilization than leaving him in place. When the anticipated disaster failed to materialise, critics spoke of Iraqis loathing the uncertainties of life and death today to the certitudes of life and death under Saddam. With the on-going terrorist insurgency producing death in Iraq and disenchantment in America, both claims came back in vogue. Critics now spoke of greater humanitarian disaster, citing the figure 650,000 Iraqi dead since Saddam’s ouster on 20 March 2003 published by the Lancet journal last October and polls showing Iraqis believing themselves worse off today than under Saddam.
Facts however have again intruded. The Times (London) recently showed that the Lancet estimate was tenfold in excess of all other surveys; was produced by partisan figures using dubious extrapolations rather than body counting; included unexplained anomalies (such as an admitted two-thirds drop in the number of child deaths since Saddam’s overthrow) and was also found to be wanting by an array of experts on methodological grounds. The debunking is important, as the Lancet figure’s significance lies in the fact that, if believed, a key element in the case for removing Saddam – the humanitarian imperative – would be seen to have collapsed.
As to the views of Iraqis, questioned four years later as to whether they preferred life under Saddam to the present, a poll published on 18 March by Britain’s Opinion Research Business found that 49% of those questioned did not, while only 26% did. Also, Baghdadis’ sense of security has risen in tandem with the troop surge, according to the 400 interviewers who spoke to 5019 adult Iraqis – an index of the importance of American efforts via the troop surge to end the sense of rigidity and drift that had been increasingly characterizing the Bush Administration policy to date. Whether the surge and its attendant new strategies are adequate to the task remains to be seen.
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A great anniversary
Post below lifted from Elder of Ziyon. I do incidentally like that blog title: "Elder of Ziyon". It is of course a mockery of that stupid old antisemitic tract "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion". The blog title probably freaks a few of the crazies. To them it would PROVE the reality of their fears
For some reason, when PalArab terrorists are not as successful as they like to be at killing Jews, the world tends to ascribe peaceful motives to them. There is a good reason for this: to say that Israeli defensive actions are saving Israeli lives would justify them, and no one wants Israel to have any justification for any defensive moves.
In fact, every single Israeli action designed to save Israeli lives is roundly criticized: building a fence, pro-actively targeting terrorists, disrupting terror infrastructures, stopping tax payments to terrorists - all have come under withering condemnation.
Which brings us to today. Today is the third anniversary of Israel's wiping out Hamas uber-terrorist, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Only a week before, there was a suicide bombing at an Ashdod chemical plant that killed 10 and that was intended to blow up the plant and kill untold hundreds of Israelis. Yassin taunted Israel at the time, saying that their reaction to that attack was weak and that Hamas was gaining strength.
Those who complain about Israeli actions always say that Israel is acting in ways that cannot be justified. Here are some of the reactions to Yassin's assassination:
The killing provoked widespread condemnation from the international community. Kofi Annan, UN General secretary, strongly condemned the killing and also called on Israel to halt its policy of assassination. The UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution condemning the killing supported by votes from 31 countries including the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa with 2 votes against and 18 abstentions. The Arab League council also expressed condemnation, as did the African Union.
Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, said: "All of us understand Israel's need to protect itself - and it is fully entitled to do that - against the terrorism which affects it, within international law. But it is not entitled to go in for this kind of unlawful killing and we condemn it. It is unacceptable, it is unjustified and it is very unlikely to achieve its objectives."
The White House equivocally condemned the action. Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, said, "We are deeply troubled by this morning's incident," but he added, "Israel had the right to defend itself" and stressed that Yassin had been "personally involved in terrorism". A State Department spokesman said: "This does not help efforts to resume progress towards peace."
Well, here's your justification: In the three years prior to Yassin's death, approximately 800 Israelis were killed in terror actions. In the three years since, that number has plummeted to about 110.
The way to eliminate terror is to go after it. Israel's assassination of Yassin was part of a series of actions that reduced the threat to Israelis and caused the terrorists to spend more time hiding and less time attacking. In hindsight, it is clear that the condemnations of Israel were wrong and that, then and now, Israel's actions to defend her citizens are not only justified, but obligatory.
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ELSEWHERE
The Congressional Democrats are making a big fuss at the moment about the firing of 8 U.S. prosecutors by Attorney General Gonzales. They say they smell a rat in it. I have been covering the matter mainly on my Immigration Watch blog and it now seems clear that I was right to do so. The firing was apparently part of a generally stepped-up recent effort by the Bush administration to enforce the immigration laws. The crackdown has never been publicly announced because to do so would be to admit that enforcement had been neglected up to that point. To follow the matter on my Immigration Watch blog go here, here and here in that order. So the Democrats are just defending part of their criminal clientele -- as usual.
INSA Pressuring the FBI to Cancel Meeting with Robert Spencer : "The Muslim Brotherhood front group, The Islamic Society of North America (INSA) is pressuring the FBI to cancel having Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org from speaking to their agents. Unfortunately it may be working. Mr. Spencer is one of the most qualified individuals to inform FBI agents on the threat of Muslim terrorists. Obviously, the INSA and other groups such as CAIR are aware of this, and will put pressure on the FBI to cancel under the guise of Islamophobia."
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Friday, March 23, 2007
Your morality is what guides you in your choices between right and wrong, good and evil. If you believe it's wrong to enjoy life in a successful capitalist society, you'll feel guilty about your high living standard and a disproportionate consumption of world's resources. By extension, you wouldn't want to miss the once-in-a-year opportunity to redeem your sins by supporting such a highly moral cause as an anti-war protest.
But what is the source of a morality that forbids to fight terrorism and views the United States as the enemy? Clearly it isn't rooted in the American tradition. Such a morality manifested itself on a massive scale for the first time in the 1960s. Many of today's protesters admittedly crave to recapture the spirit of those days. Many will be singing John Lennon's "Imagine."
My research has led me to the excerpts from Yoko Ono and John Lennon's articles published in the 1972 editions of Sundance magazine. Although attributed to John and Yoko jointly, they were written mostly by Yoko who clearly was the one wearing the pants. It should be a required read for everyone who would like to know where their otherwise lazy and cynical leftist opponents get their passionate idealistic convictions from. Here is a condensed list:
1. A collective hallucination can create objective reality.
2. "The fenceless and doorless world is soon to come." Obviously it's a good thing.
3. Middle America is stupid and "afraid of youth and the future."
4. People work not because they're glad to have a job but because they're being bullied into working by the "tyranny and suppression of the capitalists." (Karl Marx called and left a message).
5. Immature youth are "the aware ones"; traditional education and thought discipline is the enemy.
6. Material reality is evil.
7. "Come together rather than claim independence."
8. "Feel rather than think."
9. Immature and irresponsible behavior is a virtue.
10. Possessions are immoral. "Any possession that is more than what you need belongs to someone who needs it."
11. A worldwide revolution ("progress") is inevitable, and such a future "cannot be anything but brightness."
12. To resist the revolution is immoral because it prolongs people's suffering.
13. A society based on competitiveness and logic produces "hypocrisy, violence, and chaos."
14. A society based on love rather than reasoning will produce "balance, peace, and contentment."
15. To remove evil from this world men must be feminized (if you liked this one you will also like "The DaVinci Code" which is a 500-pages-long regurgitation of this very doctrine).
Absurdities may be a good material for rock lyrics, but presented as a life philosophy they are, well, absurd. Nonetheless, in the absence of logic and reason whose use had been abolished by liberal education, this psychobabble has become Holy Scripture of the new "progressive" religion. John's fame and his unfortunate martyrdom have turned these mind games into unquestionable prophecies. They might as well be called the Gospel of John and Yoko, from which generations of protesters have been religiously drawing their strength and moral fortitude. Can you say, "Imagine no religion?"
While Yoko may not be the original creator of these inanities, she certainly succeeded in presenting them as the original "Instant Flower Garden" combination package. Planted into the heads of faithful innocents, the seeds have grown into the bizarre efflorescence covering the left side of America's brain that we are dealing with today.
So many of these uncontested absurdities have been inserted as moral messages in popular novels, TV shows, and Hollywood movies, that one can only wonder how come they haven't yet become the country's official ideology. One might even suspect there's some ominous dark force in this society that is preventing a total compliance with the "progressive" morality. A conservative might identify the culprit as the good old common sense. But if you are a frustrated "progressive," you will either blame it on the American stupidity, or claim a criminal conspiracy. Either way you may become convinced that the culprit had better be eliminated with prejudice for the sake of the Greater Good.
If you believe the Gospel of John and Yoko represents a higher morality, you will naturally begin to resent such obstacles in the way of "progress" as reason, the rule of law, common sense, the need to be a master of your own life, and the responsibility for your own well-being. And since the United States of America was built on such values and remains their most dedicated proponent, any honest and consistent "progressive" is bound to develop a seething hatred towards this country.
In the "progressive" book of virtues, American values are the quintessence of evil. So if you are a "progressive" and you aren't mad at this country, that just means you're neither honest nor consistent. But then again, because living by this dead-end moral code is logically impossible, one has to resort to hypocrisy and seek compromises, forever balancing on the edge of madness.
Such mad morality is exactly what drives people into crowds at anti-war rallies. The fate of Iraq is not their biggest concern. Protesting the war is more of an excuse to take revenge for the daily torture of maddening hypocrisy and compromises with the "system." Believers in the Gospel of John and Yoko use these rallies to claim high moral ground, work out anxieties, seek reassurance - and some of the die-hards may even still harbor hope that a collective hallucination will somehow change the objective reality - just as the prophecy predicted.
As for the Iraqis - to hell with them! Let them all kill each other. "Progressives" have more pressing issues, struggling to maintain and expand their high moral ground. They have never cared about the lives of the people they claimed to protect. They didn't care about the Soviets, Cubans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, or Palestinians. It was always about them and their maddening inner struggles.
Granted, this mad dead-end morality has always existed in various forms around the world. But it was in the 1960s that it gained such massive proportions in this country - and has been growing ever since, affecting schools, culture, politics, and even science - occasionally winning the official status. So even if America had swallowed and digested a refutation of itself then, it has suffered such a severe poisoning that many toxins have reached as far as the Capitol Hill and settled there, resulting in Congress's erratic and self-destructive behavior.
Attempts to confront the lure of "progressive" ideology with facts and logic have failed and will continue to fail because the "progressive" faith is not based on facts and logic. It is based on morality and this is the ground on which it must be fought.
Conservatives who support their positions with economic and political data but give away high moral ground to the "progressives" are thereby admitting that their economic and political achievements are immoral - and thus have no right to exist. Those seeking middle ground and a moral compromise are thereby proposing that hypocrisy and absence of moral standards be made the law of the land. Guess what fish will grow most rapidly in those murky waters!
The only way to fight absurdity is by exposing it for what it is - an absurdity. The "progressive" morality based on logical fallacies and wishful thinking cannot sustain the life of a society or even one individual. It lures people with seemingly easy solutions to life's problems, but results in breeding hateful wrecks wallowing in their own madness, trapped in their communal moral dead end, longing for self-destruction and trying to drag the rest of us down with them.
Because the spreading of the "progressive" morality has always brought suffering and misery to real-life humans, it should be exposed as inhuman and condemned. It should be opposed with the true human morality that is based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - the one that has proven to spread happiness, prosperity, and real progress without any quotation marks.
More here
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
Post below lifted from Dinocrat
ABC has a poll of Iraqis that it positions as highly negative, and of course that is partially true. However, the story is more complicated, and far better than ABC represents, if you are not a Sunni. Here’s the ABC spin from its story, “Voices from Iraq 2007: Ebbing Hope in a Landscape of Loss” — a heck of an objective title for a news article by the way:
A new national survey paints a devastating portrait of life in Iraq: widespread violence, torn lives, displaced families, emotional damage, collapsing services, an ever starker sectarian chasm - and a draining away of the underlying optimism that once prevailed…the sharpest deterioration is in Baghdad, where the number of Iraqis who say their own lives are going well has dropped by 51 points. But it’s also down by 26 points in the rest of Iraq. And even outside of Baghdad, just 32 percent of Iraqis feel “very safe” where they live, compared with 60 percent a year and a half ago.
The poll is quite bizarre in some respects. For example, it features touchy-feely data like this chart below, showing that the poor Iraqis feel “stress” in their transition away from decades of cruel, totalitarian rule towards, perhaps, something better:
We look at the chart above and we wonder how the Western world, the United States of America, and our attendant freedoms, blessings, and wealth were ever created. Did the American Revolution or Civil War, or maybe World War I or World War II, or even Desert Storm, cause “trouble sleeping” among Americans, we wonder? Should we have canceled our own Civil War or opted out of World War II to prevent “feelings of anger” or “difficulty concentrating”? Indeed, is “stress” in the pursuit of freedom a vice?
Leaving aside the fatuousness of the chart above, let’s get down to the real nitty-gritty: do Iraqis feel safe in their environs and are they happy that we liberated them? The way ABC spins the poll, you would say no, since in many cases ABC averages the results of Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites, and the purported nearly 100% negativity of Sunnis weighs down the averages. So you can’t believe the story; you have to look to the poll’s internals to find some truth. Powerline summarized these findings, which show a high level of satisfaction among Shiites and Kurds on these issues:
when asked to rate “today's conditions in the village/neighborhood where you live” with respect to security, by a 61% to 39% margin, Shia respondents rated their local security “good” rather than “bad,” and by an even wider 89% to 11% margin, Kurds rated their local situation “good.” The average is dragged down by the Sunnis, who said 7% “good,” 93% “bad.”…When asked whether it was right for the coalition to invade Iraq and depose Saddam, 70% of Shia and 83% of Kurds say Yes. On the other hand, Sunni responses were 2% Yes, 98% No…
So Kurds and Shiites rate their local security good by wide margins, and they are darned happy that the Americans decided to free them from their torment and bondage. Sunnis, on the other hand, are understandably upset by their loss of power, and the subsequent acts of reprisal against them.
But — and this is our point about the methodological problems with this poll — is it possible or plausible that 98% of Sunnis are virtually unanimous in their disapproval of the deposing of Saddam Hussein? Is is possible that only 2% of Sunnis (a result that could go below zero, since the margin of error is 2.5%) are happy that the US deposed Saddam? Are there no Sunnis in Iraqi government or getting US government contracts or largesse? Are there zero freedom-loving Sunnis in Iraq? Do 98% of any group ever agree on anything at all? Furthermore, as we said, the 2% of Sunnis who are reported to think that liberating Iraq was a good idea is even below the margin of error of the poll:
The survey had a contact rate of 90 percent and a cooperation rate of 62 percent for a net response rate of 56 percent. Including an estimated design effect of 1.51, the results have a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
We wonder if the poll’s methodological problems come from the difference between the “contact rate” of 90% and the “cooperation rate” of 62%. What tests did ABC’s pollsters perform to determine that there were no systematic biases among the Sunnis who did and did not cooperate, for example? Might we find an answer to ABC’s counter-intuitive findings of unanimity there?
The ABC poll and story flunk the tests of common sense in at least a few ways: (a) ABC’s relentlessly negative story on its poll, which ignores the regional and confessional differences in results, itself calls into question the objectivity of the poll; (b) the touchy-feely nature of some poll questions are such that any war whatsoever, including the American Revolution, the Civil War and World War II would give the same negative results on certain issues; (c) it is highly suspect that only 2% of Sunnis approve of the US’s removal of Saddam Hussein; and (d) any poll about any issue that results in statistical unanimity among a large group of those polled ought to question the validity of its own methodology. In summary, it’s hard not to conclude that there was an agenda behind both the poll and the reporting of the poll.
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ELSEWHERE
The latest Leftist hero going down the same old path of economic destruction: "While Barbara Walters is busy sucking up to Hugo Chavez, I wonder if her inquiring mind is even aware of the damage this wonderful and passionate guy is doing to Venezuela's economy? Venezuela is knocking three zeros off the bolivar, its currency, and renaming it the "bolivar fuerte" (strong bolivar). This is an effort to cope with rising inflation. Inflation has spiked in recent months due to Mr Chavez's very expansive fiscal policy, and capital flight following recent nationalisations. Ahhh. The wonders of socialism! You would think that this "charming", "passionate", and "intelligent" man might have learned from the economic debacles that socialism wrought in the 20th century. You would think he could look around the world and grasp that a country's embrace of socialist and communist principles is directly proportional to its level of poverty and misery. And that even in the so-called "advanced" and "enlightened" European Union (socialism lite), life is deteriorating."
The rich already pay most of the tax: "The IRS just released some data. One of the most interesting reported facts is this: "For tax year 2004.... Taxpayers with an AGI [adjusted gross income] of at least $328,049, the top 1 percent of taxpayers, accounted for 19 percent of total AGI, representing an increase in income share of 2.2 percentage points from the previous year. These taxpayers accounted for 36.9 percent of the total income tax reported, an increase from 34.3 percent in 2003"
Another charming Muslim: "A man who ripped out his wife's eyes in a fit of rage was sentenced by a French court to 30 years behind bars today. Mohamed Hadfi, 31, tore out his 23-year-old wife Samira Bari's eyes following a heated argument in their apartment in the southern French city of Nimes in July 2003 after she refused to have sex with him. Ms Bari, who had demanded a divorce before the attack, was permanently blinded. Hadfi, a Moroccan, initially fled to Germany. He was finally arrested and sent back to France, where he was indicted for "acts of torture and barbarity leading to a permanent disability". Prosecutor Dominique Tourette demanded that Hadfi be sentenced to 30 years in prison, two thirds of which must be served in full, calling the defendant a "diabolic torturer". Once his sentence is served, Hadfi will be deported and barred from ever returning to France."
Scientist "Silenced" By Bush Gave 1,500 On-The-Job Media Interviews In Recent Years: "A NASA scientist who said the Bush administration muzzled him because of his belief in global warming yesterday acknowledged to Congress that he'd done more than 1,400 on-the-job interviews in recent years. James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who argues global warming could be catastrophic, said NASA staffers denied his request to do a National Public Radio interview because they didn't want his message to get out. But Republicans told him the hundreds of other interviews he did belie his broad claim he was being silenced. "We have over 1,400 opportunities that you've availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled," said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican."
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Spc. Craig Perkins' uniform made him a target in Baghdad - and, he believes, again in an apartment complex near Clarkston. Perkins, who returned last summer after almost a year's duty in Iraq, shot a man outside his apartment March 9 in what he says was the culmination of months of insults by some of his neighbors from the Middle East. Perkins, 34, said some residents in the ethnically diverse Kristopher Woods Apartments taunted him and made spitting sounds when they saw him in uniform heading to or from National Guard duty. Now Perkins is moving. He said he did not want more conflicts.
Perkins said he shot 26-year-old Tareq Ali Bualsafared in self-defense after Bualsafared and another man threatened him. He said the two men rushed toward his front door even after he fired a warning shot. Bualsafared, a college student from the United Arab Emirates, said Perkins was the aggressor. He said Perkins cursed them. Bualsafared, who was shot in the leg, said neither he nor his friend, Saleh Ali, a 17-year-old refugee from Iraq, knew anything about Perkins before he confronted them as they walked by his apartment. In interviews Friday, the accounts of Perkins and Bualsafared agreed on one detail: There were angry words about Iraq before shots were fired.
He said he had no animosity for his Middle Eastern neighbors in Clarkston. "I've never been a prejudiced person," he said. He noted he is a black man with a white girlfriend. He said he has white and American Indian ancestors. But he said he could feel the animosity when he walked by his Middle Eastern neighbors in his Guard uniform. Women and older men tended to be polite, but the younger men were hostile, he said. On many occasions, he said, he received signs of disrespect he knew from Iraq. Men made exaggerated spitting noises, and "they would raise their shoe at me to show me the bottom of their feet, or they would take off their shoe and wave it at me."
Perkins said that before last week's shooting, he had never seen Bualsafared or Ali, neither of whom lived in the apartment complex. But he believes others helped prod the men to come to his apartment looking for a fight....
Perkins said Ali said something about being an Iraqi and said he wasn't afraid of Perkins' .45 caliber automatic pistol. Bualsafared said Perkins then fired. Perkins said he warned the men to stop and fired a warning shot, but they ran toward him until he fired several shots. He said Bualsafared made it to his front steps, a few feet from his door. Bualsafared said the men were in the parking lot when Perkins shot him. DeKalb police spokesman Michael Payne said a detective's report showed blood was found "just outside" Perkins' door. Police at the scene arrested Perkins and charged him with aggravated assault. But after about 15 hours in jail, he was released when a magistrate's judge declined to sign a criminal warrant. Perkins is not now charged with a crime, Payne said.
On Thursday night, Ali was arrested by DeKalb police for criminal trespass, DeKalb jail records show. The arrest was apparently based on a complaint that he should not have been in Perkins' apartment complex at the time of the incident.
More here
There is a lot of discussion of this case among conservative bloggers. See, e.g. here and here. We seem bound to hear more of it. The fact that the soldier was black might protect him somewhat from the Muslim-lovers, though
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ELSEWHERE
The Durham bully: "Michael Nifong may be about to get his just desserts. His abuse of the legal process has been so outrageous that the government will have to do something, if only to save face. Nifong will be the one exception that proves the rule but, overwhelmingly, government never attacks its own. He's a wounded shark and will be thrown to the others as a sacrifice. Watch him scream as he is slowly consumed."
After constant Arab agreement-breaking: "Since Oslo's degeneration into the murderous intifada and the ongoing Palestinian infatuation with suicide/murder, the vast majority of Israelis have become convinced that their only option for even a modicum of peace is to fully separate from the bulk of the Arabs who surround them. Considering the skewed press coverage by the international media, as documented by sites such as MEMRI, Camera, and the Augean Stables, it takes a great deal of desperation and courage for the Israelis to accept that they have few friends and no choices but to do whatever necessary to protect themselves. Learning that there is nothing you can do to satisfy, or appease, your enemies is a hard lesson to learn. Many Americans are having profound difficulty grasping the lesson"
Textbooks of hate: "At the end of 2006, the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Higher Education introduced new 12th grade schoolbooks, written by the Center for Developing the Palestinian Curricula. The center is comprised of Palestinian educators appointed by the Fatah governments of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, and directed by Dr. Naim Abu Al-Humos, former PA Minister of Higher Education, appointed in 2002. The center is backed by foreign funding, with special thanks to Belgium noted in the new schoolbooks.... PMW has found that the new 12th grade Palestinian schoolbooks make no attempt to educate for peace and coexistence with Israel. Indeed, the opposite is true: The teachings repeatedly reject Israel's right to exist, present the conflict as a religious battle for Islam, teach Israel's founding as imperialism, and actively portray a picture of the Middle East, both verbally and visually, in which Israel does not exist at all."
The bad loan panic: "More and more mortgage borrowers can't keep up with their monthly house payments, and Congress wants to rescue them. "I'm determined to do everything we can to allow people to stay in their homes," Democratic senator Chris Dodd, head of the banking committee, said on Wednesday. But congressional meddling is not the way out of subprime-mortgage woes; in fact, government action will prolong the crisis.... Investors in mortgage loans, including investment banks, pension funds, and international bondholders, jumped into risky subprime mortgages because they were paid for that risk, getting higher interest rates than they would have received for investing in, say, Treasury bonds. The reason that the risky mortgages paid more, of course, was that there was a very real possibility that lots of borrowers would default. If the government, or its proxy, now steps in and purchases those mortgages, or otherwise systematically bails out borrowers, it will create a hazard for the future. The next generation of mortgage lenders won't take the high risk of subprime home loans seriously, because they'll expect that, in the event of another crisis, the government will step in and bail them out again. So they'll be even more eager to approve the risky subprime mortgages that are getting so many borrowers into trouble in the first place."
Globalization does not lead to inequality: "Another investigation -- this one by Fernando Borraz and Jose Ernesto Lopez-Cordova -- of some of the economic consequences of freer trade finds that freer trade has not increased income inequality in Mexico: "Our findings strongly indicate that globalization has not raised income inequality in Mexico. On the contrary, we present compelling evidence showing that income distribution is more equitable in states that are more closely linked to the world economy and that those states exhibit larger declines in inequality. We also find some statistical evidence suggesting that deepening globalization results in reduced inequality"
I have just put up a lot of postings from Chris Brand but I did not have time to put in the links. So email me if you want to follow something up.
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2007
An excerpt from Vanderleun below
Four years in to the most gentle war ever fought, a war fought on the cheap at every level, a war fought to avoid civilian harm rather than maximize it. Picnic on the grass at Shiloh. Walk the Western Front. Speak to the smoke of Dresden. Kneel down and peek into the ovens of Auschwitz. Sit on the stones near ground zero at Hiroshima and converse with the shadows singed into the wall. Listen to those ghost whisperers of war.
Four years in and the people of the Perfect World ramble through the avenues of Washington, stamping their feet and holding their breath, having their tantrums, and telling all who cannot avoid listening that "War is bad for children and other living things." They have flowers painted on their cheeks. For emphasis. Just in case you thought that war was good for children and other living things.
There were children and other living things on the planes that flew into the towers. They all went into the fire and the ash just the same. But they, now, are not important. Nor is the message their deaths still send us when we listen. That message is to be silenced. The rising brand new message is "All we are say-ing is give...." And it is always off-key. Four years in and they are upset that their party of the 90s has been so long interrupted; that their raves are foreshortened; that their sleep is persistently shaken by car bombs beyond the far horizon; that their time at the mall can not be entirely, completely, and utterly without guilt.
Four years in and the clear and present danger to the nation must be closeted in favor of the unclear and distant end of the world if we insist on exuding, as all life does, carbon dioxide. Send the nation and its armies and its wards and protectorates to the block, but keep the polar bears cold. "Can't you see that worldwide wall of water sweeping in to inundate all life in 30, 50, 100, 500 years?"
"No. I cannot see it from here." "Ah well, you are a warmonger, an evil person, a vile Christian, a shameless, shameless American. "You must have shame. Shame is what we have when we look around us. We are ashamed. You must join us, share in our shame at being Americans, at being the last best hope of earth. "Join us and join the rising despair of people who, believing in nothing, believe only in the self, the life of the senses, the mollifying of guilt, of 'the expense of reason in a waste of shame.'" Four years in and the fools in the streets multiply. They are tired of the war, but full of themselves.
It is taking too long. | It will be with you, blowing hot and cold, for decades yet to come.
It is costing too much. | How much will it cost to rebuild a burned and irradiated Los Angeles?
Too many soldiers have died. Even one soldier's death is too much. | What is the nature and duty of a soldier? Is a soldier there only to come in and sandbag a flooded New Orleans? Bring you a Red Cross sandwich and a cup of weak coffee after a tidal wave?
We shall overcome. | Overcome who? Your fellow citizens? Certainly not the enemy. You'll not get over on this one with your Ghandiesque platitudes, unless you are ready to all go like lemmings over the cliff and onto the spikes. You don't strike me as the kind of people with that level of commitment. You strike me as the kind of people who like to prance, rant, and chant, and then go home for a nice chilled Chardonnay and a slab of grilled tofu. Then you spend an hour bitching about Bush before taking a bong hit and sucking up some MTV. I know you well. I was you.
We shall take our no balls and go home. | You will return when your children are slaughtered in their schools. You will return when one of our cities burns. You will return when your cities freeze in the winter, your beer warms without ice in the summer, your iPods go flat as you walk streets with few lights, and the shelves of your store are bare when the crops fail and the trucks cannot run.
Look around you. Everything you have, everything, is there because of oil. The brute fact of the planet right now and into the next few decades is that without oil, the machine that enables you to be you runs on oil. If that oil runs out, your nation, any nation, will do all that it can to get it back. And you will be back not "with peace, but with a sword" of a terrible fire. In your name. In all our names.
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ELSEWHERE
That great mathematical whizz, La Griffe du Lion has recently put up another of his rare but extremely erudite articles on intelligence measurement. He looks at the recent contention that men are on average slightly more intelligent than women. He trialled his analytical methods on the well-known black/white gap and got a difference of 16 IQ points -- which agrees well with the 15 points usually found. When he applied the same methods to the male/female difference he confirmed that too -- finding a difference of 2.4 points -- not too far off estimates by others of a 3 to 5 point difference. Don't criticize his conclusions unless you can find a hole in his analysis. He gives that in detail but you might need to be a mathematician to follow it.
BBC "impartiality" at work: "At this year's conference, I was stopped by a BBC radio reporter who was soliciting opinions on the scandal involving Israel's president. "Should he resign?" asked the reporter. "I'm not sure," I replied. "I don't know the facts." "Nice to be able to sit on the fence," the BBC's seeker of truth responded. "Sorry," I added, "but in my country, someone is innocent until proven guilty." He was obviously disappointed by my wanting to examine the evidence before voicing an opinion. That's apparently not a requirement for the BBC in its coverage of accusations of Israelis' transgressions."
German support for the Ayatollahs: "Only Europe could force Teheran to change course by non-military means. While the USA don't trade with Iran, China, Japan, and Russia are expendable for Teheran. Europe isn't: Most technologically sophisticated imports originate from the European Union. "Two thirds of the Iranian industry is equipped mostly with machines of German origin", reports the former president of the German-Iranian chamber of commerce, Michael Tockuss."The Iranians depend on German replacement parts and suppliers." A study of the Iranian parliament confirms: Without European replacement parts and industrial products the Iranian economy would be paralysed within months. Instead of using this last available leverage to force a change of course by non-military means, Berlin in particular rejects an efficient regime of sanctions"
Another killer Kennedy: "For four decades there have been rumours that Marilyn Monroe's death was not a simple suicide. Now a Los Angeles-based Australian writer and director, Philippe Mora, has uncovered an FBI document that throws up a chilling new scenario. Bobby Kennedy's affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of - and perhaps even a participant in - a plan "to induce" her suicide....The report was in effect buried for decades as a classified document, and even the released version contains censored sections. Never before mentioned despite thousands of articles, books and documentaries about her death, it details aspects of Kennedy's on-and-off affair with the movie star, including sex parties and a lesbian dalliance... The document gives no precise reason why she would be killed but hints it may be linked to her threats to make public her affair with Kennedy" [You can see one of the documents concerned here]
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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Monday, March 19, 2007
I rather like a slogan I saw up today on the signboard of my local Seventh-day Adventist church: There is no shortcut to anywhere worth going to.
I must say that I respect the way the SDAs keep the Sabbath. That most Christians regard the Day of the Sun as sacred is paganism, with no warrant in the Bible. But, as I have pointed out on my scripture blog, so much of modern Christianity is pagan with no warrant in the Bible -- the celebration of Christmas and Easter included, of course. The only day that Christ instructed his followers to commemorate was the Passover (1 Corinthians 11:25).
I imagine that all my readers are aware of Christmas as a development of the pagan winter solstice festival but some may be less familiar with the history of Easter. The name comes ultimately from the Babylonian goddess Astarte, who was a fertility goddess -- and to this day the symbols universally associated with Easter are pagan fertility symbols -- eggs and rabbits.
And the day of the sun (the first day of the week) was the day sacred to almost all pagans of course. It was presumably because it was so pagan that those pesky Hebrews decided to celebrate the last day of the week instead. For pagans, however, the last day of the week remained the day of Saturn. I wonder how many of my readers know why we have seven days in the week? The answer is on my scripture blog and it's not what you most probably think.
Update:
There is a site here which lists how the days are named in different languages. It is interesting to see that where we name Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after Norse gods, the Italians, Spanish and French still use names that are derivatives of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus.
One or two readers seemed to think that I was proselytizing for the Seventh Day Adventist church in what I wrote. So I guess I should mention that I have never been inside an SDA church nor have I ever read an SDA book. Does that cover it?
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ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS
Professor Israeli public lecture
Without a great fuss
Group hugs can be dangerous
Why the peaceful majority is irrelevant
In fear for the future of Britain
Melanie Phillips speaks to a Melbourne audience
Do not appease hatred
Melanie Phillips
Moderates must not become apologists for radical Islam
A man of the people
Raphael Israeli: Muslim apologist, thy name is coward
Let people say when to give in to minorities
Jimmy Carter's Bonfire of the Vanities
The Rape of Europe
Braving the wrath of latte man
Liberals are now the appeasers of hate
Gagged - or just challenged?
Protector of the free world deserves better
No wisdom mollycoddling Muslims
Beyond burger imperialism
Israeli police storm temple
Intimidation tactics
Modern Israel is a far cry from old South Africa
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ELSEWHERE
Muslims seem determined to make themselves unpopular: "Six Muslim imams who were forcibily removed from a US Airways flight last year and are now suing the airline for discrimination may also be suing some passengers who were aboard the flight. In the lawsuit filed last week, the imams say that unnamed "John Doe" passengers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport reported that they engaged in "suspicious" behavior — praying in the terminal — before they boarded the plane on Nov. 20. Omar Mohammedi, the imams' New York-based lawyer, said that the imams have not yet decided whether to pursue this complaint, but if they do it would affect only those passengers who were prejudiced in their suspicions."
Nothing to Fear? "Suspected terrorists sign up to drive school buses. I don't know about your kids, but my kids ride on school buses. FBI says nothing to fear. OK. Same agency that missed the boat on 9/11. My kids' driver doesn't look like al-Qaeda, but what does al-Qaeda look like, anyway? Same agency that can't figure out where Whitey Bulger is, either, although same agency was up to its eyeballs in Bulger murder and helped him escape. Same agency that couldn't read the rules on the Patriot Act, while we're at it".
Your government will protect you: "The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet President Bush's promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The 2006 hurricane season turned out to be mild, and the new pumps were never pressed into action."
WMDs used in Iraq: "At least 350 Iraqi civilians needed hospital treatment after insurgents detonated three trucks filled with toxic chlorine gas, killing two policemen. The gas attack yesterday was the seventh this year in which insurgents have used chemical gas bombs on civilians and security forces in what appears to be a new terror tactic for al-Qaeda militants. The attacks were carried out between 4.11pm (12.11am AEDT Saturday) and 7.13pm on Friday, two of them just south of the town of Fallujah and one northeast of the nearby city of Ramadi, both hotbeds of al-Qaeda militants. "Approximately 350 Iraqi civilians and six coalition force members were treated for chlorine gas exposure," Lieutenant Roger Hollenbeck of the US-led Multinational Division West said.
For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here.
The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".
Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.
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