Blaming Wall St.

Liberal Lies, Propaganda and Omissions

Those who seek the truth seldom can find it in history books. Liberals who write those books blame conservatives for every criminal act those very Liberals commit against an uninformed citizenry. They use every trick in the book including lies, propaganda and omission to distort the truth to their own biased agenda.

For example, take the cause of our “Great Recession.” Liberals are blaming Wall Street and the Republicans for what was clearly an economic and societal catastrophe generated out of liberal redistributive policy. Take from the rich give it to the poor and when the poor fail to follow through blame the whole thing on the rich.

Over a billion people were listening in last Sunday when Charles Ferguson accepted the Oscar for “Inside Job” a documentary featuring the likes of George Soros blaming Wall Street for the meltdown of the real estate and mortgage market. He said “that three years after the horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud not a single financial executive has gone to jail and that’s wrong”.

In that single phrase liberals incorporate not only their lies, but their propaganda and omissions as well. Anyone with a kindergarten education knows that NINJA loans were to blame for the meltdown and that Democrats not only sponsored but covered up the fraud until it was too late to save many financial firms. Senator Dodd and Representative Frank were at the core of the deception and they and they alone caused the Great Recession.

Now you can say Wall Street was complicit. They not only benefited from the fraud when it was taking place but doubly benefitted by betting that that the market would implode and they would profit when they covered their short positions. You bet there was corporate cronyism after the fact. They triply benefited by getting the government (the taxpayers) to bail out their losses by covering their bets on the downside.

But the playing field is not fair. The government is no longer a small institution based on limited government. It has grown into a behemoth. It can only be viewed as the enemy of free enterprise. Therefore since all tactics are allowed in war Wall Street knows how to play that game better than anyone else. Since they have to “make” the market in all securities they can’t be held responsible for seeing that government (their enemy) interference could be profited from on the downside as well as the upside. They have to make the market don’t they?

Those who really profited from betting the downside were Democrat CEO’s of major security houses and George Soros. So this self-made chaos orchestrated by Soros really makes us all a bunch of chumps. It makes the media and our politicians look even worse.

Comment by retired tax accountant Dick McDonald

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"A remorseless demographic arithmetic"

Mark Steyn

According to Bismarck's best-known maxim on Europe's most troublesome region, the Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Americans could be forgiven for harboring similar sentiments after the murder of two U.S. airmen in Germany by a Kosovar Muslim.

Remember Kosovo? Me neither. But it was big at the time, launched by Bill Clinton in the wake of his Monica difficulties: Make war, not love, as the boomers advise. So Clinton did — and without any pesky U.N. resolutions, or even the pretense of seeking them.

Instead, he and Tony Blair and even Jacques Chirac just cried "Bombs away!" and got on with it. And the left didn't mind at all — because, for a modern western nation, war is only legitimate if you have no conceivable national interest in whatever war you're waging.

Unlike Iraq and all its supposed "blood for oil," in Kosovo no one remembers why we went in, what the hell the point of it was, or which side were the good guys. (Answer: Neither.) The principal rationale advanced by Clinton and Blair was that there was no rationale. This was what they called "liberal interventionism", which boils down to: The fact that we have no reason to get into it justifies our getting into it.

A decade on, Kosovo is a sorta sovereign state, and in Frankfurt a young airport employee is so grateful for what America did for his people that he guns down U.S. servicemen while yelling "Allahu akbar!"

The strange shrunken spectator who serves as President of the United States, offering what he called "a few words about the tragic event that took place," announced that he was "saddened," and expressed his "gratitude for the service of those who were lost" and would "spare no effort" to "work with the German authorities" but it was a "stark reminder" of the "extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making . . ."

The passivity of these remarks is very telling. Men and women "in uniform" (which it's not clear these airmen were even wearing) understand they may be called upon to make "extraordinary sacrifices" in battle. They do not expect to be "lost" on the shuttle bus at the hands of a civilian employee at a passenger air terminal in an allied nation.

But then I don't suppose their comrades expected to be "lost" at the hands of an army major at Fort Hood, to cite the last "tragic event" that "took place" — which seems to be the president's preferred euphemism for a guy opening fire while screaming "Allahu akbar!"

But relax, this fellow in Frankfurt was most likely a "lone wolf" (as Sen. Chuck Schumer described the Times Square Bomber) or an "isolated extremist" (as the president described the Christmas Day Pantybomber).

There are so many of these "lone wolves" and "isolated extremists" you may occasionally wonder whether they've all gotten together and joined Local 473 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves and Isolated Extremists, but don't worry about it: As any Homeland Security official can tell you, "Allahu akbar" is Arabic for "Nothing to see here."

Bismarck's second best-known maxim on the region is that the Balkans start in the slums of Vienna. The Habsburg imperial capital was a protean "multicultural society" wherein festered the ancient grievances of many diverse peoples.

Today, the Muslim world starts in the suburbs of Frankfurt. Those U.S. airmen were killed by Arid Uka, whose Muslim Albanian parents emigrated from Kosovo decades ago. Young Arid was born and bred in Germany. He is a German citizen who holds a German passport. He is, according to multicultural theory, as German as Fritz and Helmut and Hans. Except he's not. Not when it counts.

Why isn't he a fully functioning citizen of the nation he's spent his entire life in? Well, that's a tricky one.

Okay, why is a Muslim who wants to kill Americans holding down a job at a European airport? That's slightly easier to answer. Almost every problem facing the western world, from self-detonating jihadists to America's own suicide bomb — the multi-trillion dollar debt — has at its root a remorseless demographic arithmetic.

In the U.S., the baby boomers did not have enough children to maintain their mid-20th century social programs. I see that recent polls supposedly show that huge majorities of Americans don't want any modifications to Medicare or Social Security.

So what? It doesn't matter what you "want." The country's broke, and you can vote yourself unsustainable quantities of government lollipops all you like, but all you're doing is ensuring that when, eventually, you're obliged to reacquaint yourself with reality, the shock will be far more devastating and convulsive.

But even with looming bankruptcy America still looks pretty sweet if you're south of the border. Last week, the former director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Steve Murdock, told the Houston Chronicle that in Texas "it's basically over for Anglos." He pointed out that two out of every three children are already "non-Anglo", and that this gap will widen even further in the years ahead. Remember the Alamo? Why bother? America won the war, but Mexico won the peace.

In the Lone Star State, Murdock envisions a future in which millions of people with minimal skills will be competing for ever fewer jobs paying less in actual dollars and cents than they would have earned in the year 2000. That doesn't sound a recipe for social tranquility.

What's south of Europe's border? Why, it's even livelier. In Libya, there are presently one million refugees from sub-Saharan Africa whose ambition is to get in a boat to Italy. There isn't a lot to stop them.

Between now and mid-century, Islam and sub-Saharan Africa will be responsible for almost all the world's population growth — and yet, aside from a few thousand layabout Saudi princes whoring in Mayfair, they will enjoy almost none of the world's wealth.

Niger had 10 million people in 2000, and half-a-million of them were starving children. By 2010, they had 15 million, and more children were starving. By 2100, they're predicted to hit 100 million. But they won't — because it would be unreasonable to expect an extra 90 million people to stay in a country that can't feed a population a tenth that size.

So they will look elsewhere — to countries with great infrastructure, generous welfare, and among the aging natives a kind of civilizational wasting disease so advanced that, as a point of moral virtue, they are incapable of enforcing their borders.

The nations that built the modern world decided to outsource their future. In simple economic terms, the arithmetic is stark: In America, the boomers have condemned their shrunken progeny to the certainty of poorer, meaner lives.

In sociocultural terms, the transformation will be even greater. Bismarck, so shrewd and cynical about the backward Balkans, was also the father of the modern welfare state: When he introduced the old age pension, you had to be 65 to collect and Prussian life expectancy was 45.

Now life expectancy has near doubled, you get your pension a decade earlier, and, in a vain attempt to make that deformed math add up, Bismarck's successors moved the old East/West faultline from the Balkans to the main street of every German city.

SOURCE

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Sap

Speaking of the left’s willingness to provide cover for Islamic imperialism, the hippetty-hop mogul Russell Simmons was in Times Square this weekend to stand in solidarity with the Ground Zero mosque under the slogan “Today I Am A Muslim, Too“:

Some 300 people gathered in Times Square on Sunday to speak out against a planned congressional hearing on Muslim terrorism, criticizing it as xenophobic and saying that singling out Muslims, rather than extremists, is unfair.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the imam who had led an effort to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site were among those who addressed the crowd.

“Today I Am A Muslim, Too.” So, like, you can be a Muslim on a Sunday and something else on a Monday? Hey, that’s great! Who knew? Maybe Russell Simmons could pass the good news on to Said Musa? They didn’t get the memo on death row in Kabul, where he was imprisoned for converting to Christianity.

Kim Kardashian was unable to attend the rally but tweeted her support for it. Maybe Kim could jet in to the village of Soul in Egypt’s Helwan Governorate and personally pass on to the locals the exciting news that you can be Muslim just for a photo-op and then move on. I’m sure the girlfriend of Coptic Christian Ashraf Iskander would love to hear that, assuming she’s still alive:

A mob of nearly four thousand Muslims has attacked Coptic homes this evening in the village of Soul, Atfif in Helwan Governorate, 30 kilometers from Cairo, and torched the Church of St. Mina and St. George…

This incident was triggered by a relationship between 40-year-old Copt Ashraf Iskander and a Muslim woman. Yesterday a “reconciliation” meeting was arranged between the relevant Coptic and Muslim families and together with the Muslim elders it was decided that Ashraf Iskander would have to leave the village because Muslims torched his house.

The father of the Muslim woman was killed by his cousin because he did not kill his daughter to preserve the family’s honor, which led the woman’s brother to avenge the death of his father by killing the cousin. The village Muslims blamed the Christians.

The Muslim mob attacked the church, exploding 5-6 gas cylinders inside the church, pulled down the cross and the domes and burnt everything inside…

But that’s just their colorful way of saying today St Mina and St George are Muslims, too! Witnesses said the mob chanted “Allahu Akbar” and vowed to conduct their morning prayers on the church plot after razing it.

“Today I am a Muslim, too”? No need to jump the gun, Russell.

SOURCE. (See the original for links)

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ELSEWHERE

Sikhs mistaken for Taliban?: "Police said Saturday that they don't know why someone gunned down two men -- frail from heart attacks and advancing years -- as they slowly ambled through a quiet Elk Grove neighborhood during their daily afternoon walk. ... Relatives and friends in the tightknit Sikh community to which the two men belong were not as hesitant to call the shooting a hate crime. Singh and Atwal, like many Sikh men, had thick beards and wore turbans -- traditions that have made Sikhs the target of bigotry and violent attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

WI: Recall drives could make history: "As improbable as the last three weeks have been in state politics, Wisconsin is about to embark on another wild ride into the political unknown -- a series of legislative recall campaigns on a scale the nation has rarely, if ever, seen. ... Formal recall campaigns have now been launched against 16 state senators -- eight Republicans and eight Democrats. That's everyone in the 33-member Wisconsin Senate who is legally eligible to be recalled this year."

LEAP slams Obama renewed Drug War commitment: "The pro-legalization group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition fretted that President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon were embarking on a counterproductive mission after the two pledged 'renewed cooperation' on the drug war Thursday. 'Legalization is the only way to end the cartel violence, just like ending alcohol prohibition was the only way to make gangsters stop shooting each other over beer and liquor distribution,' Tom Angell, a spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, told Raw Story in an e-mail."

Taxpayers in revolt: "Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of the Jimmy John's sub chain, just applied to move his residence from Illinois to Florida — and his company's headquarters could soon follow. 'All they do is stick it to us,' he says of the state legislature's move to jack up the personal income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent — and the corporate income tax from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent."

Washington’s most corrupt list, 2010: "It doesn’t seem to matter how much house cleaning voters do in the legislature; year after year, the corruption gets worse. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released its report on the 'most corrupt' politicians for 2010."

There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc. He says a fair bit about Libya this time.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Hellfire and the immortal soul are pagan doctrines

Although I have been the most utter atheist for all of my adult life, I cannot rid myself of an interest in theology, or more precisely, exegesis -- so I am reproducing the article below. I would normally have nothing but contempt for an "evangelical" equivalent of Episcopalian Bishop Spong but I think that there are good Biblical grounds for some of the more unorthodox views described below and I will add my reasoning on that at the foot of the reproduced article -- JR

A new book by one of the country’s most influential evangelical pastors, challenging traditional Christian views of heaven, hell and eternal damnation, has created an uproar among evangelical leaders, with the most ancient of questions being argued in a biblical hailstorm of Twitter messages and blog posts.

Rob Bell addressed the issue of heaven and hell in a video about his book, “A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”

In a book to be published this month, the pastor, Rob Bell, known for his provocative views and appeal among the young, describes as “misguided and toxic” the dogma that “a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.”

Such statements are hardly radical among more liberal theologians, who for centuries have wrestled with the seeming contradiction between an all-loving God and the consignment of the billions of non-Christians to eternal suffering. But to traditionalists they border on heresy, and they have come just at a time when conservative evangelicals fear that a younger generation is straying from unbendable biblical truths.

Mr. Bell, 40, whose Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., has 10,000 members, is a Christian celebrity and something of a hipster in the pulpit, with engaging videos that sell by the hundreds of thousands and appearances to rapt, youthful crowds in rock-music arenas.

His book comes as the evangelical community has embraced the Internet and social media to a remarkable degree, so that a debate that once might have built over months in magazines and pulpits has instead erupted at electronic speed.

The furor was touched off last Saturday by a widely read Christian blogger, Justin Taylor, based on promotional summaries of the book and a video produced by Mr. Bell. In his blog, Between Two Worlds, Mr. Taylor said that the pastor “is moving farther and farther away from anything resembling biblical Christianity.”

“It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine,” wrote Mr. Taylor, who is vice president of Crossway, a Christian publisher in Wheaton, Ill.

By that same evening, “Rob Bell” was one of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter. Within 48 hours, Mr. Taylor’s original blog had been viewed 250,000 times. Dozens of other Christian leaders and bloggers jumped into the fray and thousands of their readers posted comments on both sides of the debate, though few had yet seen the entire book.

One leading evangelical, John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, wrote, “Farewell Rob Bell.” R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a blog post that by suggesting that people who do not embrace Jesus may still be saved, Mr. Bell was at best toying with heresy. He called the promotional video, in which Mr. Bell pointedly asks whether it can be true that Gandhi, a non-Christian, is burning in hell, “the sad equivalent of a theological striptease.”

Others such as Scot McKnight, a professor of theology at North Park University in Chicago, said they welcomed the renewed discussion of one of the hardest issues in Christianity — can a loving God really be so wrathful toward people who faltered, or never were exposed to Jesus? In an interview and on his blog, he said that the thunder emanating from the right this week was not representative of American Christians, even evangelicals. According to surveys and his experience with students, Mr. McKnight said, a large majority of evangelical Christians “more or less believe that people of other faiths will go to heaven,” whatever their churches and theologians may argue.

“Rob Bell is tapping into a younger generation that really wants to open up these questions,” he said. “He is also tapping into the fear of the traditionalists — that these differing views of heaven and hell will compromise the Christian message.”

Mr. Bell, who through his publisher declined to comment on the book or the debate, has resisted labels, but he is often described as part of the so-called emerging church movement, which caters to younger believers and has challenged theological boundaries as well as pastoral involvement in conservative politics.

As the controversy exploded last week, HarperOne moved up to March 15 the publication date of Mr. Bell’s book, “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.”

Judging from an advance copy, the 200-page book is unlikely to assuage Mr. Bell’s critics. In an elliptical style, he throws out probing questions about traditional biblical interpretations, mixing real-life stories with scripture.

Much of the book is a sometimes obscure discussion of the meaning of heaven and hell that tears away at the standard ideas. In his version, heaven is something that begins here on earth, in a life of goodness, and hell seems more a condition than an eternal fate — “the very real consequences we experience when we reject all the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us.”

While sliding close to what critics consider the heresy of “universalism” — that all humans will eventually be saved — he never uses the term.

Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today, called in an article on the magazine's Web site for all sides to temper their rhetoric and welcome more debate.

“We won’t be able to discern where the Spirit is leading if we don’t listen and respond respectfully to one another,” he wrote.

“God once used a donkey to make his will known,” he added, “so surely he is able to speak through both traditionalists and gadflies.”

SOURCE

I think Pastor ring-a-ding is right for the wrong reasons. He is clearly motivated mainly by the current Leftist "prizes for all" mentality, which in turn emanates from their totally counterfactual belief that "all men are equal". So his is a secular rather than a religious gospel. I may be wrong but I rather doubt that he would be able to give a straight answer to the question: "Do you believe in God?" Spong just ridicules the question.

But orthodox Christianity is unbiblical too. It is still largely mired in the pagan add-ons that the church absorbed in its first thousand years of existence. And the heaven/hell story is one of the pagan add-ons. Why else is the supposedly "immortal" soul repeatedly referred to in the Bible as dying? (e.g. Ezekiel 18:4).

The original Jewish hope of an afterlife (as recorded in the OT) was of being resurrected to life on this earth after the coming of the Messiah. They believed that when you are dead you are dead, with no mention of some part of you flitting off to heaven or elsewhere. I give you an excerpt from Ecclesiastes chapter 9:

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.... Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest

And Jesus looked forward to a resurrection on earth too. Do I need to repeat: "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven"?

St Paul, however muddied the waters somewhat with his proclamation in 1 Corinthians 15:

"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.... Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."

So Paul was also perfectly clear that nothing happened until the resurrection and that we are mortal, not immortal. What he changed was WHAT we are raised as. Instead of being recreated as flesh and blood persons on this earth, he saw us as being transformed into spirit beings after the manner of God and the angels. And he said NOTHING about Hell. The good guys were brought back to life and the rest of the dead stayed dead.

So what the Bible says is just ignored by orthodox Christianity. It should be a huge theological puzzle as to whether we accept the OT or the Pauline account of the afterlife. Who is right? Jesus or Paul? Yet there seems to be almost no awareness that the question even exists.

And there also seems to be no awareness that there is no Biblical basis for the doctrine of hellfire. There is no mention of such a thing in the Bible. The words translated in most English Bibles as "hell" are in the original Hebrew and Greek "sheol" and "hades", which simply mean "grave".

There is on one occasion a reference to burning in the fires of Gehenna but Gehenna was simply the municipal incinerator of ancient Jersusalem -- a place where the bodies of criminals were thrown. It is NOT any kind of spirit realm.

So I agree with pastor ring-a-ding that the hellfire doctrine is repulsive -- but you can't pin that doctrine onto the Bible. The original Bible doctrine DOES fit with a loving God: The faithful are resurrected and the sinners are simply forgotten.

For more details on the above matters see my scripture blog -- e.g. my post of 3.14.2005.

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Barack Obama and the Cavalcade of Naivete

By Barry Rubin

President Barack Obama told Democratic Party contributors in Miami:

"When you look at what's happening...in the Middle East, it is a manifestation of new technologies, the winds of freedom that are blowing through countries that have not felt those winds in decades, a whole new generation that says I want to be a part of this world. It's a dangerous time, but it's also a huge opportunity for us.''

Obama also said that the United States should not be "afraid" of change in the Middle East. Well, that depends on the kind of change, doesn't it? I wouldn't be afraid if Iran, Syria, and the Gaza Strip had revolutionary upheavals that installed moderate democratic governments, for example.

But let me remind you once again, my theme from the first day of the Egyptian revolution has been that I'm worried because others aren't worried. The more they show that they don't understand the dangers, the greater the dangers become.

President Franklin Roosevelt said about the Great Depression that there was, "Nothing to fear but fear itself." That is, Americans should be confident about their abilities to solve problems. But he didn't say, when German forces seized one country after another, that Americans shouldn't be afraid of change in Europe. Nor did he say, as the Japanese Empire expanded, that Americans shouldn't be afraid of change in Asia.

President Harry Truman didn't say that Americans shouldn't be afraid of change in Eastern Europe when the Soviets gained power over the governments there or China became Communist.

These (Democratic) presidents recognized the danger and worked to counteract it as best they could under the circumstances.

In contrast, while giving lip service to the idea that it's a "dangerous time," Obama never points to what the dangers are because, frankly, he has no idea. All the points he makes about these changes are positive, cheerleading.

Yet if he's right on what basis does the United States not want some regimes--Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority--to be overthrown? Why does he not make a differentiation between America's enemies and America's friends?

To show who is really being naive, he added:

"All the forces that we see building in Egypt are the forces that should be naturally aligned with us. Should be aligned with Israel."

All the forces "should be" aligned with the United States and Israel! Well, maybe they "should be" but they aren't. In fact, it is the exact opposite: all the forces that we see building in Egypt are forces that in fact are not aligned with the United States and Israel. Here we see the arrogance of someone who tells people in other countries what they should think instead of analyzing what they do think.

Of course, what happens--and we see this quite vividly--is that the intellligence agencies and media rewrite reality to say that these people are moderate because that's what the president expects.

Here are some historical parallels to Obama's statements (I made them up):

1932: Germany should be aligned with the Western democracies and the United States because that is the way it will achieve prosperity and stability in Europe, two things that German desperately needs. Only 14 years ago, Germany lost a long, bloody war. Surely, the Germans have no desire to fight again and repeat their mistake of trying to conquer Europe!

1945: The Soviet Union should be aligned with the Western democracies and the United States because we have just been allies in a great war. Moscow must understand that the United States has no desire to injure it, wants to live in peace, and respects Soviet interests. Surely, Stalin will put the emphasis on rebuilding his country and not on expansionism abroad!

1979: The new Islamist regime in Iran should be aligned with the West and the United States because they accept the revolution there, want good relations, and are the customers for Iran's oil exports.

1989: Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi regime should be aligned with the West and the United States because they backed him in his recent war with Iran and he fears the spread of revolutionary Islamism. Saddam will cause no trouble and will put the priority on rebuilding his country after a bloody eight-year-long war with Iran and providing better lives for his people.

1993: Yasir Arafat and the Palestinians should be aligned with the United States and eager to make a comprehensive peace with Israel since that is the only way they can get a state. Now that they are going to have elections and be responsible for administering the West Bank and Gaza Strip certainly the PLO will cease to be revolutionary or terrorist.

Get the picture? And so when Obama says:

"I'm actually confident that 10 years from now we're going to be able to look back and say that this was the dawning of an entirely new and better era. One in which people are striving not to be against something but to be for something."

Remember those words. He has absolutely no understanding of the Arabic-speaking world, the Muslim-majority world, or the Middle East whatsoever. How are these new regimes going to stay in power, smite their rivals, and make up for not delivering the material goods to their people? What is the world view of these forces? How do they perceive America, the West, and Israel? These are the questions that should be asked, and answered, in order to understand what the world will look like in a decade.

SOURCE

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Obama Irrelevant on World Stage

Two years into his presidency, the man who promised to restore America's standing in world public opinion has rendered himself personally irrelevant on the world stage. President Obama came into office more popular abroad than he was even at home, where he won a resounding election victory. European crowds thronged his speeches; leaders complimented him on his cultural sensitivity; the foreign press praised his cosmopolitan roots. The cognoscenti were so enamored of Obama that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize barely nine months into office. The move embarrassed even Obama.

But as the world faces a cataclysm of popular revolt stretching across North Africa and into the Middle East, Obama stands mostly on the sidelines. He did nothing to support the brave Iranian demonstrators who flooded the streets of Tehran after fraudulent elections there in 2009. He waited too long to weigh in on the side of Egyptians who demanded an end to autocratic rule in their country.

Now, as tens of thousands of Libyans flee their country and despot Moammar Gadhafi orders air attacks on his own people, Obama dispatches his secretary to Capitol Hill to quiet administration critics urging the U.S. to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.

The wisdom of setting up a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone is debatable, but that wasn't the message Secretary Gates delivered. He implied that we couldn't do it because the U.S. doesn't have enough aircraft carriers in the region to support it. The administration seems intent in engaging in the opposite of saber rattling; call it saber sheathing instead. Following the decision to dispatch a chartered ferry to evacuate Americans trapped for days in the escalating violence in Tripoli, his comments make us look weak.

The protests spreading throughout the Arab and Muslim world came with little warning -- and it is far too early to tell whether things will end well for the people in the region or for United States' interests. For more than 60 years, the one thing that has united Arabs is their hatred for Israel and Israel's ally, the United States. Arab rulers have managed to quell opposition by ginning up hatred of Israel, crushing those who dare to challenge them, and -- in oil-rich countries -- providing a standard of living just high enough to keep the general populace from open revolt.

But it wasn't Obama who saw the demand for democracy coming. It was his predecessor George W. Bush. Indeed, the push for democracy in the Middle East was the linchpin of his foreign policy in the region. He gave countless speeches on the subject, rarely missing an opportunity to promote his freedom agenda. Yet, the very people who fawned over Obama openly reviled Bush.

More HERE

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Did Muslim Lobby Force Firing of Popular Radio Host?

Washington, D.C. radio station WMAL is once again being accused of firing a popular talk-show host because of his criticism of radical Muslims. The station, a major source of news and information for the nation's capital, claims that popular morning host Fred Grandy resigned on his own, but Grandy tells AIM that he was essentially forced to leave after his wife, who is also outspoken about radical Islam, was cut from the program.

The growing controversy over Grandy's departure has resulted in some Grandy supporters charging the station with being "Sharia-compliant," a reference to Islamic law, and with bending under pressure from the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR), a Muslim lobbying organization that combats what it calls "Islamophobia" in the media.

Grandy, a former actor and Republican member of Congress, told AIM, "My wife and I have used our program over the last several months to warn about the spread of radical Islam at home and abroad. Last week, Catherine (known on the show as Mrs. Fred) delivered a very tough indictment against stealth jihad, and for her efforts she was told she was off the show. I then told management without Mrs. Fred at the microphone, I could not remain either and have resigned effective this morning."

A WMAL statement, which makes no mention of terminating "Mrs. Fred," was released on Thursday and claimed that "Fred Grandy has informed WMAL of his intention to resign from the station and its morning program, The Grandy Group. Veteran broadcast talent Bryan Nehman will continue to anchor the morning program and in the interim will be joined by several notable guest hosts and regular contributors. The station's morning show will also continue to provide the latest news, traffic and weather reports to its audience. WMAL remains committed to its goal of providing a forum for discussing a broad spectrum of issues while delivering compelling programming including Chris Plante, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin."

The statement on the Grandy matter was read on the air by another WMAL host, Chris Plante, who said that his broadcast opposition to radical Islam has not been curtailed in any way.

Grandy told AIM, "We cannot affirmatively conclude CAIR or any of the prominent Islamic organizations had anything to do with this. We do know, however, in 2005 representatives of CAIR in DC were successful in getting midmorning host Michael Graham fired for anti-Islamic statements he had made on the radio and TV."

Graham was fired from WMAL after describing Islam as a "terrorist organization" on his program and refusing to apologize or modify the description.

James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force, who insists that Grandy was "forced to walk away" from his program after the banning of his wife from the show, blames the controversy on CAIR. "CAIR frequently criticized Grandy for reading FBI reports and court documents on his radio show which labeled CAIR as `an unindicted co-conspirator' in the federal Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial," Lafferty said.

But CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper acted surprised by the news of Grandy's resignation and responded, "What is their evidence for that claim?," when informed that his group was being blamed for his departure.

Lafferty told AIM, "I heard from two very good sources that CAIR was involved in this and not only targeting Grandy but Sean Hannity." He said CAIR's strategy was to knock Grandy off the air and then go after Hannity, a nationally syndicated radio host carried by WMAL in the afternoon. Hannity also hosts a Fox News Channel TV show.

Lafferty has urged supporters of the Grandys to protest on Monday, March 7, and Tuesday, March 8, during "Call Out WMAL Days." He wants the public to call WMAL at (202) 895-2350 and (202) 686-3100 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each of those days and tell the station, "you will not listen to their station until Fred and Mrs. Fred Grandy return."

"America expects radio stations to be committed to free speech and the truth," he says. "We expect WMAL to grow a backbone and stand up to CAIR and the other radicals. Call early and often."

SOURCE

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Economists: State, local pension funds understate shortfall by $1.5 trillion or more

Doubts about government pension accounting have been voiced by analysts for years, but with shortfalls in state and local pension plans exacerbated by the recession, the push to refigure pension fund shortfalls has gained political momentum.

The trillion-dollar gap arises from the government method of accounting, which several experts say significantly underestimates the cost of future pension payments.

"It's been a perfect storm," said Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. When the pension liabilities are correctly tallied, "you get a very, very large number."

The cost of pension plans for the approximately 17 million state and local government workers have come under heightened scrutiny in recent weeks, particularly in Wisconsin, New Jersey and other states where governors are struggling to balance budgets and reduce costs.

In Wisconsin, for example, Gov. Scott Walker (R) wants state workers to pay 5.8 percent of their wages to fund the pension.

Even under current accounting methods, state and local governments are facing massive pension shortfalls - at least $344 billion, according to calculations by the Center for Retirement Research and other groups.

But when the accounting is revised to value future payments more accurately, in the critics' view, the amount that pensions are underfunded grows to more than $1.9 trillion, according to Munnell's calculations for 126 large plans.

Those calculations have been published in part in a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research.

By comparison, the entire federal debt held by the public is $9.3 trillion.

"By virtually any measure, that's an enormous number," said Jeffrey R. Brown, a finance professor at the University of Illinois who has studied the issue. "When you're short that much money, at some point you have to pay the piper."

If the pension obligations are as enormous as critics say, virtually every state and local government running a pension will have to invest more in its pension plan - either by cutting services or raising taxes - or gamble that it will achieve a high rate of return on its investments.

More HERE

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Shortage of Goodwill in Berkeley

When it comes to the foreign terrorists detained at Club Gitmo, the moonbats of Berkeley spread their arms wide in sanctimonious welcome. But Goodwill stores that help Americans cause them to fold those scrawny arms across their sunken chests:

Solano Avenue merchants are trying to stop the nonprofit giant from opening a thrift store in the upscale commercial district, saying it would be a magnet for the homeless, noisy delivery trucks and bargain-hungry shoppers not likely to patronize the area's boutique baby stores and Persian rug shops.

Goodwill hasn't reached an agreement with the landlord yet, but.

That has not stopped some merchants from circulating anti-Goodwill petitions and asking the city to stop the project on the grounds that it would alter the character of the neighborhood. .
The city cannot act on the issue until Goodwill signs a lease and moves ahead with the permit process. If there are enough complaints, a public hearing on the permit could be scheduled.

Meanwhile, vacant storefronts have been growing more numerous along Solano Avenue. With a little help from bureauweenies, they should be able to keep one vacant rather than let used goods be sold to the lower classes.

SOURCE

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Brainless ban on lead again

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester's father used a horse to get around his 1,100-acre Montana farm. When Jon got older, he sold the horse and bought a motorcycle.

Now, Montana's junior senator is trying to help keep the young citizens of Montana riding. At the start of this Congress, Tester reintroduced legislation dubbed "the dirt bike bill" that makes it possible for retailers to sell motorized vehicles (dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles) properly sized for children as young as six.

Why can't 6 year olds ride dirt bikes you may ask? If you thought it had something to do with the inherent danger of zipping around on what is essentially a small Harley Davidson, you'd be wrong. Instead, it has to do with lead. In 2008, the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Act made it illegal for children's toys to contain more than a specified amount of lead.

Concern over lead in children's toys came to a head in 2006 when a 4-year-old boy named Jarnell Brown of Minneapolis died after swallowing a heart-shaped charm bracelet made by Reebok. The charm, which came free in a box of shoes, turned out to be made almost entirely of the heavy metal, and Brown died of lead poisoning.

As part of subsequent toy-safety legislation, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., added a provision that would ban the metal from children's toys. The bill has led to the recall of an array of toys including dinosaur play sets, body boards, fishing poles, animal masks, and dolls.

As far as the bill was concerned, if children were going to ride dirt bikes, they had to adhere to the same set of regulations as Barbie dolls. And children's dirt bikes and ATVs had enough lead in their brake parts, battery terminals, and other internal components to keep them off the market. To Tester, this wasn't horse sense; it was horse's ass sense.

"I don't think of them as toys," he said. "There's a big difference between a dirt bike and a dollhouse. I really don't see there being a big risk of children chewing on the motor and getting lead poisoning," Tester said.

A spokesman for Klobuchar said that that she never intended for dirt bikes or ATVS to be included in the bill, and is has in fact voted in favor of exempting them from the lead ban.

To some, a dirt bike is more than just a play thing, it's the best way to enjoy the Big Sky State's great outdoors. The fourth-largest state in the country, Montana really is an "all-terrain" state, featuring everything from the mountains to the prairies. Sure, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy the outdoors, but few offer the high-speed and dust-kicking capabilities of motorized vehicles.

Tester says riding dirt bikes and ATVs to enjoy this eclectic landscape is a quintessential Montana experience. It's something he remembers from his youth when he used to ride around on his Honda 160 with his friends. It's a practice he passed down to his granddaughter when she got her first ATV at the age of four (it was small enough that Tester said he would certainly bend the frame if he tried to sit on it).

More HERE

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ELSEWHERE

Government can't regulate just one side of the market: "I've spent the last week or so teaching price controls in my intro-to-economics class. One thing I tried to stress is that controls are often sold to the citizenry in a way that disguises what they really do. I don't mean just the obvious point that there are unintended consequences. I mean that such laws appear to regulate only the 'bad guys' while protecting the innocent folks on the other side of the transactions. In reality government can't regulate just one side of the market: Regulations on sellers are necessarily regulations on buyers, and regulations on buyers are necessarily regulations on sellers"

Keynesian politics and the minimum wage: "The minimum wage sets a lower bound that, even in good times, prevents the least-productive workers from finding work. In recession times, it's even worse. Keynesians in the golden age of Keynesianism were quite critical of the minimum wage and were sympathetic to its victims."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Feminist Media Promote Flawed White House Report

Marc Rudov, the author and radio/TV personality known as The NoNonsense Man, doesn’t think much of the feminist-oriented “White House Report on Women” released by the Obama Administration on Tuesday. “I discount any report about women from the White House,” he said. “President Obama has a clear female bias and agenda.” Rudov asserts, citing a major government study, that there is no real wage gap, as depicted in the White House report, and that the evidence shows that men have suffered the most from the economic downturn.

The report was released on the eve of International Women’s Day on March 8 and is expected to be used to push Senate ratification of the U.N.’s Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).


The horrible loudmouth herself, complete with socialist clenched fist

However, a leading feminist and U.N. activist on “women’s rights,” former Rep. Bella Abzug (pictured), has just recently been exposed by her FBI file as a communist who maintained friendly contacts with the Soviet mission to the U.N. One FBI official called her “the highly controversial loud-mouthed Congresswoman.”

In regard to the White House report, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Tuesday let the modern feminist line dictate coverage of the document. On the alleged wage gap between men and women, he solemnly proclaimed, “An old problem is just as bad, just as serious, and it continues to hold women back economically.”

“The report says that women are still paid about 75 percent of what their male counterparts are paid,” said NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett was brought on to assert that the new report provided “evidence” of such a gap. “It’s a conclusion that does not sit well with women around the country,” Guthrie added.

But Rudov counters, “In January 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor received the results of a study it had commissioned from an outside consultancy on male and female wages. The report, ‘An Analysis of the Reasons for the Disparity in Wages,’ concluded that there is no gender-based wage gap.”

In addition, he says, “our economic downturn has been called the MANcession. According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, when the economy deteriorated in 2009, men felt the brunt of it. Some 3.1 million jobs held by men were lost compared to only 1.6 million for women—and women now dominate in the workforce and increasingly in the ranks of management.” The “MANcession” was even the subject of a New York Times article noting the recession has disproportionately hurt men.

At the same time, Rudov notes, “The reality is that women now earn the majority of undergraduate and graduate degrees. And, women in their 20s and 30s now out-earn their male counterparts across the United States. Time magazine calls this phenomenon the SHEconomy.”

On the supposed wage gap, which is where the feminists in the media and their male lackeys are now waging their next battle, Rudov notes that “In many cases, such as male welders and female dental hygienists, men and women often do very different jobs and get paid differently. To claim there is an average male wage and average female wage is both disingenuous and mathematically inaccurate.”

“The differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action,” his website points out. “Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”

Indeed, the report, “An Analysis of the Reasons for the Disparity in Wages,” states that “the raw wage gap continues to be used in misleading ways to advance public policy agendas without fully explaining the reasons behind the gap” and that “There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap.”

Rudov concluded, “It seems that Mr. Obama’s report conflicts with the facts.” But the liberal media did not bother to point this out.

Rudov notes that journalist Hanna Rosin, cofounder of DoubleX and a contributing editor to The Atlantic, recently gave a presentation at the TED Conference called “Women Are Taking Control of Everything.” DoubleX is a feminist Web magazine launched by Slate, which is owned by The Washington Post.

In the TED presentation, Rosin declares, “We are now going through an amazing and unprecedented moment where the power dynamics between men and women are shifting very rapidly. And in many of the places where it counts the most, women are in fact taking control of everything.”

SOURCE

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Interior Dept. Issues Deepwater Permit, But It Only Points Out The Stupidity of the Moratorium

Michael Bromwich, the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement which issued the approval.

There is much rejoicing in the oil patch today over the news that the Obama administration’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approved the first deepwater drilling permit since the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

The permit went to Noble Energy for a well at the Santiago project, approximately 70 miles southeast of Venice, La., not far from the Macondo well that the Deepwater Horizon was working on.

Here’s the thing, though – this isn’t a permit for a new project. The permit issued to Noble was for a bypass of an obstruction in a well they’d already drilled before the Deepwater Horizon accident. It took 314 days to get that well back online with this administration.

From Noble Energy’s press release on the subject… "Located in 6,500 feet of water, the Santiago exploration well had previously drilled to a depth of 13,585 feet at the time of the moratorium. Drilling operations are anticipated to resume in late March 2011, targeting total drilling depth of approximately 19,000 feet. Results are expected by the end of May 2011. The Ensco 8501 rig, which performed completion operations on the Santa Cruz and Isabela discoveries at the Galapagos project during the second half of 2010, will perform the drilling at Santiago".

“This permit was issued for one simple reason: the operator successfully demonstrated that it can drill its deep-water well safely and that it is capable of containing a sub-sea blowout if it were to occur,” BOEMRE head Michael Bromwich said. “We expect further deep-water permits to be approved in coming weeks and months based on the same process that led to the approval of this permit.”

Noble has contracted with Helix Energy Solutions Group to use that firm’s collection system (due to go online by the end of March) in the event the well’s blowout preventer fails. Helix built a system to deal with well control in just such an eventuality, as did the industry consortium Marine Well Control Corporation, which announced a little over a week ago they had completed an interim system to deal with a wild deepwater well.

No new project has been issued a permit by BOEMRE yet. Shell has applied for one, and a decision on it is supposed to be made any day now. But Bromwich touted today’s announcement as a big deal in any event at a press conference this afternoon.

“This is a new well in the sense it is going into a reservoir and therefore was barred under the moratorium,” Bromwich said. ”So we treat an application for a bypass like this much as we do for new wells. I don’t think it’s right to say, ‘Oh it’s just a bypass so it’s not as significant as a permit for a new well.’”

It’s not a new well. It’s a well Noble had been drilling for four days when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, and it’s a well that would have been online and producing oil but for the 314-day delay in getting a permit from the administration. That Bromwich wants the same credit for issuing this permit as for a new well is very instructive.

Rep. Charles Boustany, whose voice has become more and more angry over the months as the moratorium and permitorium have ravaged his district’s economy, sounded a similar tone today.

“This first deepwater permit is critical to restoring jobs in Louisiana, especially at a time of rising gas prices and turmoil in the Middle East,” Boustany said. “The United States cannot afford to continue its reliance on foreign energy when so many of our natural resources sit idly by in our own backyard.

“The people of Louisiana are united in their voices – they are ready to return to work,” Boustany continued. “This is a major step toward getting American energy production up and running again. This is important for the Gulf Coast, but there is a permit backlog and BOEMRE must approve other permits without delay.

Bromwich said now that the ice is broken, there will be a flood of permits issued.
“Industry has been waiting for signals that deepwater drilling would be able to resume and I think they’ll take this as that signal,” he said.

Perhaps so. Perhaps the industry will be more interested in Mr. Bromwich’s signals when his department complies with Judge Martin Feldman’s order of 11 days ago directing him to issue or deny five permit applications by Ensco Offshore in the deepwater Gulf that have been sitting idle for more than four months. When his agency acts on those permits, then the industry will believe things are back to normal.

If it believes otherwise, it’s foolish. And the oil industry is not foolish.

More HERE

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Eric Holder's People: The attorney general confirms suspicions of racial bias at the Justice Department

"This Department of Justice does not enforce the law in a race-conscious way," declared Attorney General Eric Holder in a House oversight hearing yesterday. But Politico reports on an exchange during the hearing that suggests otherwise. Rep. John Culberson, a Texas Republican, was questioning Holder about the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, which the department dismissed after Holder took over:

The Attorney General seemed to take personal offense at a comment Culberson read in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.

"Think about that," Holder said. "When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia--which was inappropriate, certainly that . . . to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people," said Holder, who is black.

It's sometimes a useful exercise to imagine situations like this one in reverse. Suppose that in the course of defending himself against accusations of bias in favor of whites, a white attorney general referred to whites as "my people." What would we make of that?

We have to admit that, for historically contingent reasons, such a scenario would be worse. Although civil rights laws protect everyone, they were enacted to remedy brutal and systematic discrimination against blacks. Thus it is of particular importance that black Americans be able to have confidence in the impartial administration of justice.

Yet to say it is of particular importance is to draw a distinction of degree, not of kind. It is of great importance that all Americans have confidence in the impartial administration of justice. Holder understands that, at least in theory, or he would not have denied that his department enforces the law "in a race-conscious manner." But when the attorney general spoke of "my people" and meant only a subset of Americans, it confirmed the suspicion of bias that he was trying to counter.

"Holder noted that his late sister-in-law, Vivian Malone Jones, helped integrate the University of Alabama," Politico reports. That's a legitimate point of personal pride, but in his official capacity Holder owes his allegiance to the nation as a whole. If he approaches the job with the attitude that any group smaller than all Americans is "my people," he is the wrong man for the position.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Pro-Union Protesters Vacate Wisconsin Capitol After Judge Orders Them Out: "Pro-union protesters have vacated the Wisconsin Capitol on the 17th day of round-the-clock demonstrations after a judge ordered the building closed at night. About 50 protesters left the building peacefully Thursday night about two hours after a judge ruled the state had unconstitutionally restricted access to the building. But the ruling also said the protesters had to leave Thursday night. Dane County Circuit Judge John Albert had directed authorities to immediately take actions to remove demonstrators who stayed in the Capitol after its normal 6 p.m. closing time. He also ordered the removal of unauthorized materials, such as sleeping bags, air mattresses and the hundreds -- perhaps even thousands -- of signs that protesters have taped to the Capitol's walls."

Statement by Americans for Limited Government on federal Judge Vinson’s decision finding ObamaCare unconstitutional" ”The headlines on Judge Roger Vinson’s ruling on ObamaCare read that he has stayed his own decision for 7 days to allow the Administration time to appeal his ruling that the law is unconstitutional. While this is true, it does not reflect the overall ruling, which clearly reaffirms that Vinson’s ruling is binding and that ObamaCare is unconstitutional, and that without a stay it cannot be implemented. ”Vinson’s decision to give the Administration seven days to produce an appropriate appeal is an act of judicial charity forcing the Administration to follow federal appellate procedures, or cease implementation.”

German prosecutors: “Islamic extremism” motive in airport attack: "German prosecutors said Thursday they suspected a deadly attack on US servicemen at Frankfurt airport by a gunman was motivated by Islamic extremism. 21-year-old Arid Uka, who worked at mail distribution center at the airport, cried 'Allah Akbar' ('God is Greatest') before opening fire on a military bus at the busy airport, according to eyewitnesses quoted by German media. Two US Air Force Military Police were killed and two others were seriously injured"

WI: Senate OKs arrest of absent Dems for contempt: "The Wisconsin Senate has passed a resolution calling for police to take 14 Democrats into custody for contempt after they fled to Illinois to avoid voting on a union rights bill, the Associated Press reports. The resolution says the absent Democrats are determined to be guilty of contempt and disorderly content."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Obama asleep at the wheel over oil supplies

Gasoline prices are jumping toward the "Oh my God!" level, and if they continue upward, will soon have an unpleasant impact on consumer behavior. An economy still struggling to recover can't afford for Americans to get nervous about spending. High pump prices have that effect. The huge 2008 run-up in oil prices throttled consumer spending, hitting the automobile industry — and thus, Michigan — particularly hard.

The turmoil in the Middle East has pushed oil above $100 per barrel again, and gasoline prices are following suit. In Metro Detroit, many stations are posting prices above $3.30, with predictions that they will move higher unless oil supplies increase.

Unfortunately, at the same time foreign supplies are falling, domestic production is being curtailed by policies of President Barack Obama's administration.

The Interior Department continues to defy a federal court order that lifted a ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, put in place during last spring's oil spill. Rather than complying with the judge's order, federal regulators have stalled the issuing of permits so that almost no new drilling has occurred in the Gulf in more than six months.

In addition, the administration is standing firm on a seven-year ban on new drilling in the eastern Gulf and off the East Coast, and has expanded by 100 miles the no-drill zone off the coast of Florida.

Vast areas in the nation's interior have been placed off-limits to drilling, as has the oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Additional impact on consumers will come if Obama succeeds in his bid to raise taxes on oil companies. Those higher costs will be passed along.

Pressure is being felt as well from rising worldwide demand for oil as the economy recovers.

It adds up to the real possibility that gasoline could return to the $4 a gallon level it hit in 2008, and possibly go higher.
Democrats in Congress are urging the president to ease prices with releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But that oil serves the purpose of protecting the country against a more serious contraction of imported oil. A better strategy would be to resume deepwater drilling in the Gulf, and consider exploring other domestic reserves.

Rising gasoline prices serve the purpose of those who want an immediate and drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels. But the notion that alternative energy sources can significantly replace the demand for oil anytime soon is a pipe dream.

The only sure way to offset the decrease in foreign production is to increase domestic production, which has fallen to 5 million barrels a day from a high of 10 million.

The last time oil prices headed so sharply in this direction, Democrats and Republicans fretful about the impact on the 2008 elections agreed to expand domestic drilling. That pledge was largely revoked after the election, and restrictions on drilling have instead become tighter.

The risk that higher oil prices will send the economy back into recession is too great to ignore. Easing restrictions on domestic production is a necessary safeguard.

SOURCE

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ObamaCare to stiff the elderly and the seriously ill

The Galen Institute has an excellent summary of the damage that ObamaCare has already caused, such as driving insurers out of the child-only, small-group and individual markets. The article is only about four pages long, with plenty of supporting tables at the end.

It also contains a summary of Medicare Advantage plans getting out of the market. That apparently has the Obama Administration worried enough that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent out a letter recently that per-capita payments to Medicare Advantage would increase 1.6% in 2012 — don’t want more seniors losing their plans in an election year!

However, ObamaCare is supposed to cut about $136 billion from Medicare Advantage over the next decade, so an increase in 2012 means that even steeper cuts must follow. Of course, those can happen beginning in 2013, when President Obama will no longer have to worry about re-election.

That’s not the only consequence ObamaCare will have for Medicare Advantage. To stay in business, other plans will likely engage in what can be called “reducing costs on the back end.” That is, they will impose cost-sharing or deny care when patients are sickest and in most need of the protection that insurance is supposed to provide.

It’s already happening with one Advantage plan: Many Philadelphia area Medicare Advantage beneficiaries will be hit with a new 20 percent coinsurance on some drugs, including chemotherapy, and a new $25 copay for radiation and dialysis treatments starting next year.

The changes implemented by the region’s largest insurer, Independence Blue Cross, will affect more than 40,000 Medicare beneficiaries in Bucks and Montgomery counties enrolled in PPO and HMO plans. Previously under the plans, they had no copays for Part B drugs, including drugs that are injected or infused in doctor’s offices. Part B drugs include oral anti-cancer, immunosuppressive and drugs requiring administration via a nebulizer or infusion pump in the home.

This is what happens when insurance pays for a lot of the up-front costs that we should be paying for out-of-pocket, such as physician visits, and minor procedures and tests. Thanks to the employer-based tax exclusion for health insurance and benefit mandates imposed by most state governments, insurance has paid for more and more up-front costs. But to make revenues meet expenses, insurers cut costs somewhere. That somewhere is on the back end, when patients are often the sickest and where politicians are less likely to focus legislative protections.

ObamaCare only exacerbates this, as now all Medicare plans must fully pay for most preventive care. They can’t even charge copays. With the resulting increased demand in preventive care that insurance companies must pay for, they will inevitably save costs in areas that are not legislated, like chemotherapy drugs.

This may not fit the needs of patients very well, but it suits the needs of politicians quite well. After all, politicians want to maximize their political survival. They can please voters by giving them lots of “free” stuff, and the more voters you can so please, the better. Lots of voters want free preventive care, so politicians find it worthwhile to force insurers to give it to them. Far fewer voters, however, will develop a serious illness, so protecting them is not nearly as useful for politicians who wish to get re-elected.

The truly insidious thing about it is that politicians will be able to blame others for the problems they have created. They will get on their high horse and excoriate the heartless and cruel insurers like Independence Blue Cross. Politicians excel at obfuscation, making it difficult, as Thomas Sowell says, to trace their fingerprints back to the murder weapon.

But as long as ObamaCare remains law, get used to less and poorer quality care for the sickest. The number of people who get seriously ill each year represent a sliver of voters compared to those who have minor illnesses or no illness at all and would just like a checkup or other test. Which group do you think politicians will cater to when it comes to health care policy?

SOURCE

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A Union Education: What Wisconsin reveals about public workers and political power

The raucous Wisconsin debate over collective bargaining may be ugly at times, but it has been worth it for the splendid public education. For the first time in decades, Americans have been asked to look under the government hood at the causes of runaway spending. What they are discovering is the monopoly power of government unions that have long been on a collision course with taxpayers. Though it arrived in Madison first, this crack-up was inevitable.

We first started running the nearby chart on the trends in public and private union membership many years ago. It documents the great transformation in the American labor movement over the latter decades of the 20th century. A movement once led by workers in private trades and manufacturing evolved into one dominated by public workers at all levels of government but especially in the states and cities.

The trend is even starker if you go back a decade earlier. In 1960, 31.9% of the private work force belonged to a union, compared to only 10.8% of government workers. By 2010, the numbers had more than reversed, with 36.2% of public workers in unions but only 6.9% in the private economy.

The sharp rise in public union membership in the 1960s and 1970s coincides with the movement to give public unions collective bargaining rights. Wisconsin was the first state to provide those rights in 1959, other states followed, and California became the biggest convert in 1978 under Jerry Brown in his first stint as Governor. President Kennedy let some federal workers organize (though not collectively bargain) for the first time in 1962, a gambit to win union support for his re-election after his cliffhanger victory in 1960.

It's important to understand how revolutionary this change was. For decades as the private union movement rose in power, even left-of-center politicians resisted collective bargaining for public unions. We've previously mentioned FDR and Fiorello La Guardia. But George Meany, the legendary AFL-CIO president during the Cold War, also opposed the right to bargain collectively with the government.

Why? Because unlike in the private economy, a public union has a natural monopoly over government services. An industrial union will fight for a greater share of corporate profits, but it also knows that a business must make profits or it will move or shut down. The union chief for teachers, transit workers or firemen knows that the city is not going to close the schools, buses or firehouses.

This monopoly power, in turn, gives public unions inordinate sway over elected officials. The money they collect from member dues helps to elect politicians who are then supposed to represent the taxpayers during the next round of collective bargaining. In effect union representatives sit on both sides of the bargaining table, with no one sitting in for taxpayers. In 2006 in New Jersey, this led to the preposterous episode in which Governor Jon Corzine addressed a Trenton rally of thousands of public workers and shouted, "We will fight for a fair contract." He was promising to fight himself.

Thus the collision course with taxpayers. Public unions depend entirely on tax revenues to fund their pay and benefits. They thus have every incentive to elect politicians who favor higher taxes and more government spending. The great expansion of state and local spending followed the rise of public unions.

Professors Fred Siegel and Dan DiSalvo point out that even during the Reagan years, growth in state and local government jobs was double the rate of population growth. The effect on the private economy is a second order problem for public unions, as we've seen from the recession's far more damaging impact on private than on public workers.

Current AFL-CIO chief Rich Trumka has tried to portray Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's reforms as an attack on all unions, but they clearly are not. If anything, by reining in public union power, Mr. Walker is trying to protect private workers of all stripes from the tax increases that will eventually have to finance larger government. Regarding public finances, the interests of public union workers and those of private union taxpayers are in direct conflict. Mr. Walker is the better friend of the union manufacturing worker in Oshkosh than is Mr. Trumka.

Notice, too, how fiercely the public unions are willing to fight for collective bargaining power even if it means public job layoffs. Without Mr. Walker's budget reforms, Wisconsin will have to begin laying off thousands of workers as early as today. The unions would rather give up those jobs—typically for their younger members—than give up their political negotiating advantages. They know some future Governor or legislature will get those jobs back, as long as they retain their inordinate political clout.

This is the imbalance of political power that Mr. Walker is trying to break up, and he is right to do so. As important, the public in Wisconsin and around the U.S. seems to be listening and absorbing his message. The cause has been helped by the sit-ins and shouting of union members, the threats toward politicians who disagree with them, and by the flight of Democratic state senators to undisclosed locations in Illinois. It's hard to claim you're protecting democracy when you won't show up to vote. Taxpayers need to win the battle of Wisconsin for the sake of self-government.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Is the TSA good for ANYTHING? "A passenger managed to waltz past ramped-up security measures at JFK with three box cutters in his luggage, easily boarding an international flight while carrying the weapon of choice of the 9/11 hijackers. The breach grounded the flight for three hours on Saturday night and drew fury from US Port Authority cops, who accused the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of being asleep on the job, the New York Post reported. Once aboard Santiago-bound Flight 837, flight attendant Fausto Penaloda, 40, asked him to stow his luggage in the overhead storage bin. As Peraltalajara's shoved it into the compartment, Penaloda saw the box cutters fall out of the bag. Peraltalajara told authorities that he used the box cutters for work at a Secaucus manufacturing plant and simply forgot that they were in his luggage. He was not charged with any crime.

NH: Bill would make TSA gropings a crime: "Lawmakers and residents engaged in heated debate Tuesday over a bill that would make random airport security pat-downs and body scans criminal in New Hampshire. The bill (HB628-FN) 'makes the touching or viewing with a technological device of a person’s breasts or genitals by a government security agent without probable cause a sexual assault,' according to the introductory text of the bill. 'Let's put their name on the sex offender registry, and maybe that will tell them New Hampshire means business,' said bill co-sponsor Rep. Andrew Manuse, R-Derry."

OH: Senate votes to bar state workers from striking: "The Ohio Senate has narrowly approved legislation barring public employees from striking and from bargaining over health care, sick time and pension benefits. The measure, which would apply to about 360,000 state, university and local government workers, creates a new contract-dispute process that involves elected officials, Cincinnati.com says."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Token retreat on Obamacare

President Obama, who has stood by his landmark health care law through court attacks and legislative efforts to repeal it, told the nation’s governors on Monday that he was willing to amend the measure to give states the ability to opt out of its most controversial requirements right from the start, including the mandate that most people buy insurance.

In remarks to the National Governors Association, Mr. Obama said he supported legislation that would allow states to obtain waivers from the mandate as soon as it took effect in 2014, as long as they could find another way to expand coverage without driving up health care costs. Under the current law, states must wait until 2017 to obtain waivers.

The announcement is the first time Mr. Obama has called for altering a central component of his signature health care law, although he has backed removing a specific tax provision that both parties regard as onerous on business.

But the prospects for the proposal appear dim. Congress would have to approve the change through legislation, and House Republican leaders said Monday that they were committed to repealing the law, not amending it. Even if the change were approved, it could be difficult for states to meet the federal requirements for the waivers.

Political calculations, as much as policy ones, were at work in the president’s announcement. The shift comes as the health care law — and the mandate in particular — is under fierce attack in the courts, where federal judges have issued conflicting opinions on its constitutionality. The mandate is also a rallying cry for conservatives and Tea Party supporters, who regard it as a prime example of overreaching by the federal government.

Mr. Obama has been trying to reposition himself in the political center on some issues in the wake of the drubbing his party took in the November midterm elections; dropping his insistence on the mandate is one way to do that. And with governors pressing the administration to allow them to cut Medicaid rolls to ease their fiscal distress — a step Mr. Obama does not want to take — the president is trying to look flexible in other ways.

But Mr. Obama’s flexibility goes only so far. “I am not open to refighting the battles of the last two years,” he said, “or undoing the progress that we’ve made.”

Mr. Obama’s announcement did not appear to appease his Republican critics. The House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, told reporters that the health law was “an impediment to job growth” and that Republicans remained committed to its repeal.

More HERE

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Obama's Narcissistic Personality Disorder

During the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton suggested that if the emergency phone rang at 3 a.m. in the White House, you wouldn't want President Obama picking it up. She was wrong. Obama wouldn't pick it up in the first place. He'd let it go to answering machine. He'd be too busy chasing the nearest camera.

Obama is the "Girls Gone Wild" president: Stick a lens in front of him and he'll take off his shirt, mince about like a coed, and babble nonsensical nothings to an audience oddly fascinated by his antics.

How else to explain Obama's desperate injection of himself into the Oscars this past Sunday? Even as the Middle East goes up in flames, even as oil prices spike dramatically, even as the national debt skyrockets toward $19.6 trillion by 2015, Obama took time out to tackle a pressing question: What is his favorite movie song? Answer: "As Time Goes By," from "Casablanca." Feeling better about the world situation yet?

Obama had a busy week -- at least in terms of pop culture. Thursday evening, Obama held yet another party at the White House, this time in honor of Motown music. Celebrity attendees included Stevie Wonder, Jamie Foxx, Smoky Robinson, John Legend, Seal, Sheryl Crow, Nick Jonas and Jordin Sparks. Jamie Foxx summed up the Obamas' view of what it means to inhabit the "people's house" in his rendition of Robinson's "Get Ready": "We won the election. White House, baby, so much fun!" Meanwhile, Muammar Qadafi shot people at will in the streets of Tripoli, and Americans struggled to pay their rent.

President Obama has become the Salahis of entertainment, cropping up in random places when he's least wanted. We can't escape him. He delayed the fifth game of the 2008 World Series, so he could broadcast a 30-minute infomercial for his campaign. He threw out the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in 2009. He did a 10-minute interview with Katie Couric during the 2010 Super Bowl broadcast. In both 2009 and 2010, he did interviews with ESPN to tell the world about his NCAA tournament brackets. In 2010, Obama showed up on "American Idol." As commander-in-chief, he's hit "The View," "The Tonight Show," "The Late Show" and "Jersey Shore." OK, he hasn't hit "Jersey Shore" ... yet.

In fact, Obama is worse than the Salahis -- at least the Salahis don't use tax dollars to subsidize their antics. Obama doesn't just crash other parties -- he spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to throw parties of his own. Not that Obama cares; as he put it, "This is a pretty big house so we get lonely. It's hard for me to move around out there sometimes, so I got to bring the world to me."

Poor baby.

Obama's desperate need for attention is clearly a psychological condition. He drinks in applause like a washed-up movie star. It is usual for neglected children to develop narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), typically characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, a strong sense of entitlement, preoccupations with utopian fantasies, elitism, manipulative tendencies and pathological need for praise.

President Obama was abandoned by his parents during childhood. Now he exhibits the textbook symptoms of NPD. He thinks his powers are godlike in import; "I have a gift, Harry," Obama once told Sen. Harry Reid. He believes he is entitled to positions of power and prestige. He has never worked a real job in his life, yet deigns to tell the rest of us that he embodies our hopes and dreams. He is obsessed with nonsensical utopian fantasies of one-world peace and harmony in which nuclear weapons are beaten into plowshares.

Obama is an elitist through and through, disdaining ordinary Americans as "bitter [people who] cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." He is manipulative in the extreme, seeing every crisis as an opportunity to magnify his personal power.

Most dangerous, he requires a constant stream of paeans to his persona. Radical Muslims, socialists, anti-Semites -- so long as they clap, they're worthy of his warmth. Obama strongly resembles a once-abused puppy; he doesn't care who pets him, so long as he receives the petting.

With one exception: Obama has no interest in the attention or praise of Americans who challenge his radical agenda. To make himself subject to their philosophy would force him to acknowledge a fundamental truth: His parents abandoned him because they were bad parents, not because America is a "downright mean" country. Obama has told himself for decades that America's selfishness forced his parents to make him a social outcast. To acknowledge now that the system was largely good and his parents were largely bad would fracture his fragile ego.

So expect to see President Obama on the next telecast of the next big event. He can't stay away from the cameras, and he certainly won't leave behind the enthusiastic hurrahs of his supporters. Mr. De Mille, he's ready for his close-up.

SOURCE

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Crony capitalism and bloated government prevent entrepreneurs from producing the products and services that make people's lives better

By CHARLES G. KOCH

Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year—double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year's projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.

Several trillions more in debt have been accumulated by state and local governments. States are looking at a combined total of more than $130 billion in budget shortfalls this year. Next year, they will be in even worse shape as most so-called stimulus payments end.

For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we've been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we're determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.

Both Democrats and Republicans have done a poor job of managing our finances. They've raised debt ceilings, floated bond issues, and delayed tough decisions.

In spite of looming bankruptcy, President Obama and many in Congress have tiptoed around the issue of overspending by suggesting relatively minor cuts in mostly discretionary items. There have been few serious proposals for necessary cuts in military and entitlement programs, even though these account for about three-fourths of all federal spending.

Yes, some House leaders have suggested cutting spending to 2008 levels. But getting back to a balanced budget would mean a return to at least 2003 spending levels—and would still leave us with the problem of paying off our enormous debts.

Federal data indicate how urgently we need reform: The unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already exceed $106 trillion. That's well over $300,000 for every man, woman and child in America (and exceeds the combined value of every U.S. bank account, stock certificate, building and piece of personal or public property).

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the interest on our federal debt is "poised to skyrocket." Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is sounding alarms. Yet the White House insists that substantial spending cuts would hurt the economy and increase unemployment.

Plenty of compelling examples indicate just the opposite. When Canada recently reduced its federal spending to 11.3% of GDP from 17.5% eight years earlier, the economy rebounded and unemployment dropped. By comparison, our federal spending is 25% of GDP.

Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.

Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.

The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people's lives better. Businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out.

But what about jobs that are lost when businesses go under? It's important to remember that not all jobs are the same. In business, real jobs profitably produce goods and services that people value more highly than their alternatives. Subsidizing inefficient jobs is costly, wastes resources, and weakens our economy.

Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers—not governments—to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.

Recent studies show that the poorest 10% of the population living in countries with the greatest economic freedom have 10 times the per capita income of the poorest citizens in countries with the least economic freedom. In other words, society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom.

More HERE

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New Israeli weapon downs anti-tank rocket fired from Gaza

'Trophy' system sensed incoming missile, blew it up away from tank

A new Israeli weapons system knocked down a Palestinian anti-tank rocket in its first combat test Tuesday, the military said, showing off technology that could protect the heavy vehicles that have been the mainstay of the world's ground forces for decades.

Palestinian militants said they fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Israeli tank as it patrolled near the Gaza-Israel border, a frequent occurrence. This time, the "Trophy" system sensed the incoming rocket and fired its own projectile, blowing it up away from the tank, the military said.

Trophy is thought to be the only active defense system of its kind in the world. Up till now, tanks have relied on heavier and thicker armor plating to protect against more powerful anti-tank weapons.

Experts say the active defense concept, if it works consistently, could allow the construction of smaller, lighter and more efficient tanks.

The Israeli military did not make pictures or video of the Tuesday encounter available to the media, instead issuing a short statement. It said a tank came under fire while on routine patrol, and "for the first time during operational activity, the Trophy system, ... designed to actively protect against anti-tank missiles, identified, alerted and intercepted the (anti-tank rocket)."

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Why boom is a no-show: A lack of net investment: "Although the economy is showing some signs of revival, many people wonder why it hasn’t roared back, as it did after most previous contractions. If consumer spending were the key, the economy would be going strong. ... What is to blame is the collapse of private business investment."

The President’s own dumb rules: "While red tape is rising under his watch, President Barack Obama promised recently in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to undertake a grand review of economic regulation in the United States and get rid of rules that 'are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.' Yet he has added plenty of dumb regulations himself."

GAO: US bureaucracy wastes billions: "The U.S. government could save tens of billions of dollars a year by streamlining a bloated federal bureaucracy, according to a report Tuesday from the Government Accountability Office. In its first annual report on the subject, the GAO reviewed a wide range of federal programs, agencies, offices and initiatives to identify where the government is duplicating its goals or activities"

SCOTUS: Hospital punished worker for being in Reserves: "The US Supreme Court on Tuesday embraced a broad reading of a federal law designed to bar workplace discrimination against current or former members of the US armed forces. The high court ruled 8 to 0 in favor of a former hospital lab technician who said he was fired from his job at a Peoria, Ill., hospital because his supervisors were hostile to his responsibilities as a member of the US Army Reserves."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

****************************

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" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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