OBAMA: A PROFILE IN AUDACITY

MARK STEYN ON OBAMA:

From a preview of “the coming effort to dismantle” Barack Obama :

Asked on ABC’s “Good Morning America” last month if his lack of foreign policy experience would hurt him in his White House bid, Obama replied: “My experience in foreign policy is probably more diverse than most others in the field. I mean, I'm somebody who has actually lived overseas, somebody who has studied overseas. You know, I majored in international relations.”

Excellent. That may be my favorite foreign-policy answer since Howard Dean cited his experience in driving his kids up to Quebec for school hockey games.

MORE STEYN - ( A LITTLE LATER):

A reader responds:

Funny guy. Are you really calling attention to Obama's lack of foreign-policy experience? Perhaps you'd prefer he first serve as the governor of Texas?

Er, well, no, actually. I’m less interested in his lack of foreign-policy experience (I certainly don’t want ex-Assistant Secretaries of State or ex-ambassadors to Saudi Arabia running for President) than his lack of foreign-policy interest.

But, if you want to value grade school experience in Indonesia over executive authority in one of the world’s 20 biggest economies, feel free. I once had a penpal in Norway. Can I be National Security Advisor?

OBAMA WOULD BE ONE OF THE LEAST QUALIFIED PERSONS EVER TO RUN FOR POTUS - EXCEPT FOR JOHN EDWARDS AND AL SHARPTON! BUT HE'S RUNNING ANYWAY. NOW THAT'S AUDACITY!

DON'T GET ME WRONG: OBAMA HAS TALENT. IT'S JUST THAT HIS TALENTS ARE MORE SUITED FOR A TV TALK SHOW HOST THAN LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD. BESIDES: HE'S A SOCIALIST.

MORE ON BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JUNIOR HERE and HERE and HERE.

VIDEO REPRISE: JIHADOTERRORISTS ARE MADE, NOT BORN

EVERY ONE OF THE SUICIDE/GENOCIDE ISLAMO-TERRORISTS WAS TAUGHT THE FILTHY IDEOLOGY WHICH MOTIVATES THEM TO MURDER.

HERE'S A VIDEO OF A "PALESTANI" CHILDREN'S CARNIVAL. AS I SAID WHEN I FIRST LINKED TO THIS IN MAY OF LAST YEAR, IT'S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU CRY.

AS CHARLES SAYS: IT'S CHILD ABUSE. SEE FOR YOURSELF. EVEN IF YOU KNOW - IT'S A GOOD REMINDER OF THE DEPRAVED DEPTHS THE ENEMY HAS SUNK TO, AND WHY THIS WILL INDEED BE A VERY LONG WAR.

I WAS REMINDED ABOUT THIS BY THE LGF LINK TODAY TO A BBC EXPOSE OF SCHOOLS WHICH TEACH THIS SAME IDEOLOGY IN THE UK. YES; THE FREAKIN' UK!)

ABC NEWS 2000: SADDAM AND BINLADEN DEFINITELY LINKED

POWER LINE FOUND THE ABC NEWS VIDEO.

MORE HERE.

The fact is: all the islamofascists are allied when it comes to jihad against non-muslims. THAT'S A FACT BORNE OUT BY 1300 years of jihad.

London's Daily Mail Gives Credence to the Truthers

FROM LGF comes word that THE DAILY MAIL - (an MSM newspaper in London - sight of the HORRIFIC 7/7 attacks which murdered and injured HUNDREDS of innocent Londoners) - is giving credence and major "ink" to the LUNATIC LOOSE CHANGE crowd and their "theory" that 9/11 was an inside job.

Well, I know someone who was aboard the flight which hit the Pentagon. He was a husband and a father of three girls. He was murdered by the people who took credit for the attack - the jihadoterrorists. And as a friend of someone who was murdered on 9/11, am insulted, hurt, and angry that THE DAILY MAIL has participated in this lunatic Left-wing disinformation campaign.

FACT: 9/11 has been thoroughly investigated by Popular Mechanics and the physics of the WTC collapse thoroughly and completely explained. Every single solitary claim by the LOOSE CHANGE crowd has been answered. Every one.

What is more, Bin Laden took credit for the attacks and the jihadists are proud of their "accomplishment" - pone which finally did what they had wanted since 1993 when they first tried to destroy the WTC - and nearly did.

The global threat from jihadoterror is real: There have been nearly 8000 jihadoterror attacks worldwide since 9/11 - all in the name of jihad and restoring the Caliphate. Nearly three thousand people have been murdered in Thailand by the jihadoterrorists sionce 2004 - and not one of these attacks has anything to do with Bush or Halliburton or Israel or Afghanistan or Iraq. At least not according to the perpetrators of the attacks.

IS THIS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?! No. It is not.

But evidently it is too difficult for most of the Left to accept, so instead they create fanciful and paranoid scenarios which blame the right-wing. This idiocy borders on insanity. And THE DAILY MAIL promotes it anyway. HAVE THEY NO SHAME?

Do I have to remind then and all the other moonbats that most of the death in Iraq since 2003 has been caused by islamo-extremists and NOT the USA and its allies?!

Paranoid disinformation, like this LOOSE CHANGE crap, is one reason why we are not united and are - as a result - having such a tough time defeating the enemy. This is why I have said over and over: We need to defeat the left at home if we ever expect to defeat the enemy abroad.

THE $25 MILLION CO2 CHALLENGE: GORE, BRANSON, INSTAPUNDIT AND P. HITCHENS

Glenn Reynolds has generally been pretty good on the politics and the hypocrisy of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) crowd.

But yesterday he posted praise of an award offered by Richard Branson and Al Gore which explicitly argues that AGW is a "real and a clear and present danger to life on Earth" - a claim which is false, or at least merely hypothesized and as yet COMPLETELY UNPROVEN.

Peter Hitchens, IMHO, had a much better "read" of Gore and Branson's PR move on a BBC-TV show yesterday - (itr's 5.5 minutes in): Hitchens argues that the award is hypocritical BS.

Hitchens said - and I paraphrase:

"If Branson was REALLY serious that AGW was caused by CO2, and that it is a threat to life on Earth, then he would shut down his airlines tommorow. That he doesn't, proves Branson is not serious - and shouldn't be taken seriously."

I CONCUR.

Awards like the generous one Branson offered can - and have in the past - spurred beneficial results. But maybe if instead of offering an award to find a way to sequester 1 BILLION pounds of CO2 per year, he offered an award to someone who could experimentally PROVE that man-made CO2 is causing the present general warming trend, (and that it is NOT like the many MANY ones which have occurred throughout all of geo-history), then I think he would be doing something really constructive. Proof would end the political debate and force humanity to take some action.

I remind everyone that - as Hitchens pointed out - consenus to a particular hypothesis is NOT proof. FACT: Consensus regarding The Big Bang Theory - or String Theory - does NOT prove it. These are popular working HYPOTHESES which explain a lot, but not everything. And when scientists observe data which contradict the theory, then they abandon the theory - consensus disintegrates. REPEAT: CONSENSUS IS NOT PROOF.

In fact, there is a counter-argument that flies in the face of the AGW crowd, and it comes with EXPERIMENTAL PROOF: Specifically that COSMIC RAYS (CR) - which cause water vapor formation in the atmosphere - may actually be causing the present climate change, and also (by extension) be chiefly responsible for all previous waves of global climate change throughout geo-history. (It has been PROVEN that water vapor - WV - is a much more important factor in GW than CO2, which is relatively a weak factor, especially compared to WV.)

The fact that CR cause GW is very bad news for Leftists like Gore, because if global climate change is NOT caused by humans - particularly Western, industrialist capitalist/consumerist ones - then he and his comrades don't have a big excuse to raise taxes, pick winners & losers in the marketplace, and generally boss people around "for the common good." Which is REALLY why they LOVE AGW, and have been so vociferously and hysterically demagoguing the issue of late.

BTW: if we really want to sequester more atmospheric CO2, then there are a few simple and natural ways:

• (1) we can cut down as many OLD TREES as we can - and replace them with saplings; old trees are MUCH LESS EFFICIENT at sequestering CO2 than new/young tress. We can start by harvesting old trees in the AMAZON RAIN FOREST, and use the wood to build housing for the world's poor.
• (2) We can pay HALLIBURTON - the world's largest builder of water treatment plants - to build HUMONGOUS desalinization plants on the coast of Africa and pump the water into Africa's desserts and make them bloom with CO2-binding agriculture which produces fruits and grains to feed the world's poor and hungry people.
• (3) We can plant ONE TRILLION trees a year all over the rest of the world - fruit trees of every type, and then we can harvest the fruit to feed the world's poor.

These are serious and readily achievable projects which require NO NEW TECHNOLOGY. It's happening on a small scale already: Niger is greening their desert. This can be expanded, and go global.

If Branson is really serious he can send me a check AT ONCE. I'm waiting, Richard. Just drop me a line in the comments section of this post. Heh.

SATIRIZING RAPE

From "Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It", a February 9, 2007 article which appeared in the campus newspaper at Central Connecticut State University:

The article, written by opinion editor John Petroski, details several "benefits" that rape has made to civilization over the years. The article describes rape as a "magical experience" that has been a blessing to "ugly women."

"If it weren't for rape, how would they ever know the joy of intercourse with a man who isn't drunk?" the article asks.

[...]

Sarah [a student who was raped at age 15] said she and other students who have been raped have discussed the article since it was published.

"It's just unbelievably hurtful because it again gives people the idea that rape victims are somehow asking for it," she said. "Whatever they meant to say with the article, they failed badly. They only ended up making themselves look bad and the entire university look bad."

The article was supposed to be a satire. It failed as an effective example of that genre. More than that:

Some parents of university students said they were concerned that the article would make female students more vulnerable to being attacked.

[Hat-tip to DONAL]

24's JOEL SURNOW

“America wants the war on terror fought by Jack Bauer. He’s a patriot.”

--Joel Surnow

I came across an interesting article by Jane Mayer entitled, Whatever it takes.

I learned some fascinating things but it wasn't hard to tell that Mayer is not a fan of 24 or of conservatives. Nevertheless, I found some excerpts worth sharing:

Surnow, for his part, revels in his minority status inside the left-leaning entertainment industry. “Conservatives are the new oppressed class,” he joked in his office. “Isn’t it bizarre that in Hollywood it’s easier to come out as gay than as conservative?” His success with “24,” he said, has protected him from the more righteous elements of the Hollywood establishment. “Right now, they have to be nice to me,” he said. “But if the show tanks I’m sure they’ll kill me.” He spoke of his new conservative comedy show as an even bigger risk than “24.” “I’ll be front and center on the new show,” he said, then joked, “I’m ruining my chances of ever working again in Hollywood.”

During three decades as a journeyman screenwriter, Surnow grew increasingly conservative. He “hated welfare,” which he saw as government handouts. Liberal courts also angered him. He loved Ronald Reagan’s “strength” and disdained Jimmy Carter’s “belief that people would be nice to us just because we were humane. That never works.” He said of Reagan, “I can hardly think of him without breaking into tears. I just felt Ronald Reagan was the father that this country needed. . . . He made me feel good that I was in his family.”

Surnow said that he found the Clinton years obnoxious. “Hollywood under Clinton—it was like he was their guy,” he said. “He was the yuppie, baby-boomer narcissist that all of Hollywood related to.” During those years, Surnow recalled, he had countless arguments with liberal colleagues, some of whom stopped speaking to him. “My feeling is that the liberals’ ideas are wrong,” he said. “But they think I’m evil.” Last year, he contributed two thousand dollars to the losing campaign of Pennsylvania’s hard-line Republican senator Rick Santorum, because he “liked his position on immigration.”

His favorite bumper sticker, he said, is “Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism & Communism, War Has Never Solved Anything.”

A year and a half ago, Surnow and Manny Coto, a “24” writer with similar political views, talked about starting a conservative television network. “There’s a gay network, a black network—there should be a conservative network,” Surnow told me. But as he and Coto explored the idea they realized that “we weren’t distribution guys—we were content guys.” Instead, the men developed “The Half Hour News Hour,” the conservative satire show.

“‘The Daily Show’ tips left,” Surnow said. “So we thought, Let’s do one that tips right.” Jon Stewart’s program appears on Comedy Central, an entertainment channel. But, after Surnow got Rush Limbaugh to introduce him to Roger Ailes, Fox News agreed to air two episodes. The program, which will follow the fake-news format popularized by “Saturday Night Live,” will be written by conservative humorists, including Sandy Frank and Ned Rice.

Surnow said of the show, “There are so many targets, from global warming to banning tag on the playground. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit.”

I for one am looking forward to Surnow's new show, "The Half Hour News Hour".
[MORE ON THAT SHOW HERE.]

Piglet Anathema In The Middle East

What is it with Muslims and cartoons? Here is what one blogger found in a bookstore in Qatar:

We flipped it open and noticed that some of the pages had been vandalised with a black marker. We figured it must have been bought and returned after some kids had got there hands on it. Further inspection made us realise that this was actually systematic. Someone had deliberately "censored" out each and every picture of Piglet from hundreds of pages in the book with a black marker (my guess is that the book got caught by Saudi Censors enroute to Doha).

See the rest at Always On Watch.

LEFTISM TODAY: NIGHTMARES, PHANTOMS, DEATH WISHES AND FALSE EQUIVALENCES

DR/ SANITY HAS THE DIAGNOSIS. EXCERPT:

Contrary to popular leftist fantasies, neoconservatism is not in its final death throes (though they would like it to be); nor is it on life support. On the contrary, it is the desperate neosocialist and fascist left whose failed ideological agenda is so threatened by the values of neoconservatism that is in dire jeopardy.

That is why they are so desperate for the U.S. to be defeated and fail in Iraq.

That is why they see no moral difference between cultures that promote freedom and democracy and those that promote tyranny and oppression.

That is why they have denied that the capitalist US economy is prosperous and booming and continues to lead the world economy (even under a Republican administration); or that their own ideology has only brought poverty and misery wherever it has been implemented.

That is why they are trying to equate "global warming denial" with "holocaust denial" and discredit anyone who disagrees with their totalitarian plans to deal with global warming; and insisting that the "debate" over global warming has ended.

All of the left's pervasive nihilism and fear-mongering hysteria is packaged and promoted by their intellectual elites under the rhetoric of post-modernism; and the only intellectual remedy that exists to counter their agenda is neo-conservatism. [UMPH ADDED!]

RTWT.

IF THE LEFT TRULY FEELS THAT 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB, (OR AT LEAST EXPLOITED BY THE BUSHIES SO THEY COULD PROFIT ON "ENDLESS WAR"), AND THAT BUSH AND NEO-CONSERVATIVISM ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN BINLADEN AND JIHADISM, THEN WHY DON'T THEY DEMAND THAT OFFICIALS NOT INSTALL THESE NUKE DETECTORS AROUND NYC!?

THE LEFT'S DEMAND THAT WE WITHDRAW FROM IRAQ IS JUST AS STUPID. THE LEFT FAILS TO GRASP THAT KILLING THE ENEMY AND USING EVERY DEFENSIVE MEASURE AT OUR DISPOSAL ARE AS RATIONAL THE DEMAND THAT HAMAS MADE YESTERDAY WHEN THEY DEMANDED THAT THE WEST SHOULD NOW RE-FINANCE THEIR JIAHDIST GOVERNMENT JUST BECAUSE THEY SIGNED AN AGREEMENT WITH FATAH!

THESE FALSE EQUIVALENCES AND IRRATIONAL ARGUMENTS HELP THE ENEMY. AND THEY'RE WHY AS I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR A LONG TIME: THE WAR WITH JIHADISM WON'T BE WON UNTIL WE DEFEAT THE LEFT.

OK to Stomp American Flag but Bad to Stomp Terrorist Flag?

Stomping and burning American flags is a favourite Leftist activity worldwide. And, although that is obnoxious to most Americans, (It is meant to be), it has long been held that such behaviour is legally protected by the 1st Amendment. So what if conservatives decide to stomp a terrorist flag? Ah! THAT is different! Or so we are told:

"This story starts with an "anti-terrorism rally" held last October on campus by the College Republicans. To emphasize their point, students stomped on Hezbollah and Hamas flags. According to the college paper, the Golden Gate (X)Press, members of Students Against War and the International Socialist Organization showed up to call the Republicans "racists," while the president of the General Union of Palestinian Students accused the Repubs of spreading false information about Muslims.

A student filed a complaint with the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development. OSPLD Director Joey Greenwell wrote to the College Republicans informing them that his office had completed an investigation of the complaint and forwarded the report to the Student Organization Hearing Panel, which will adjudicate the charge.

Source

The Leftists haven't got a legal leg to stand on in the matter but what happens on American college campuses often is legally unfounded anyway, if not outright illegal. Taranto has a comment on the matter too.

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

ACADEMIC CONSENSUS, ANTI-ZIONISM AND MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING

The consensus at most "Middle Eastern Studies" departments (dominated as they are by Arabists and post-Edward Said "orientalists") is that Israel is a pariah state and an outpost of Western colonialism. This is false - but it is the consensus.

It's the same BS with so called anthropogenic global warming (AGW) crowd. Most climatology departments are dominated by 1970's ecologists and post-modern leftists who have a diathesis for hating industrialization. Hence their predisposition for blaming industrial West for natural climate change.

But, consensus is NOT how the truth is found. Consensus is a POLITICAL tool, not a scientific one. And scientific tests have proven that cosmic rays have more to do with atmospheric water vapor and that water vapor is a more potent temperature carrier than CO2.

The AGW crowd doesn't want the truth; they want to shackle the economies of the West. to their Leftist schemes and they're demagogically trying to foment climate hysteria to get governments around the world to pass laws that will accomplish this.

WE MUSTN'T LET THEM.

Need more convincin'? THEN WATCH THIS (HAT TIP TIM BLAIR):

5.5 minutes from the BBC, with Al Gore and Branson trying to scare us into taking actions they like, followed by PETER HITCHENS DEBUNKING THE ENTIRE "AGW" CROWD.

(If you hate Gore - or are bored with his rap, then FF to 5.5 minutes and watch Hitchens: HE IS MUST SEE TV!)

STILL NEED MORE PROOF "AGW" IS BS? THEN READ THIS FROM THE NYTIMES. EXCEPT (hat tip Glenn):

Greenland isn’t melting as fast as we feared.

It was big news when the rate of melting suddenly doubled in 2004 as ice sheets began moving more quickly into the sea. That inspired predictions of the imminent demise of Greenland’s ice — and a catastrophic rise in sea level.

But a paper published online this afternoon by Science reports that two of the largest glaciers have suddenly slowed, bringing the rate of melting last year down to near the previous rate.

At one glacier, Kangerdlugssuaq, “average thinning over the glacier during the summer of 2006 declined to near zero, with some apparent thickening in areas on the main trunk.”

REPEAT: AGW IS BS.

MECCA AGREEMENT BETWEEN FATAH AND HAMAS IS A SHAM

UPDATED - SCROLL DOWN -

DAILY STAR (Lebanon):

Hamas insists accord with Fatah doesn't mean recognizing Israel -

Abbas adviser fears pact will not be enough to lift embargo -

Hamas said Friday that it would never recognize Israel and will not, as a movement, abide by previously reached Palestinian peace accords with Israel as urged by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.

"We will never recognize Israel. There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination," Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, told the Reuters news agency.

Rayyan welcomed the unity government agreement reached in Mecca on Thursday but said Hamas shunned Abbas' call for Premier Ismail Haniyya, who will form the new cabinet, to abide by previous peace accords.

"We, in the Hamas movement, will not abide by anything," he said.

To achieve peace, these thugs nust be smashed first. And that won't happen until we neutralize Iran.

This same HAMAS man weighed in on the al Aksa controversy (see below) - NYTIMES:

''This is a great danger. We can't remain silent,'' said Nizar Rayan, a Hamas leader, at a celebration of a power-sharing agreement Hamas signed with the rival Fatah faction in Saudi Arabia on Thursday. ''We ask God to unite the Palestinians, with their rifles and tunnels, to be able to cleanse Al Aqsa of the ... excavations,'' Rayan said.

The al Aksa controversy like the Mecca agreement is a SHAM.

********UPDATE: Putin's Russia ENDORSES the sham:

Russia welcomes Mecca deal, urges lifting freeze

Russia on Friday welcomed an agreement by rival Palestinian factions to form a unity government and appealed for the lifting of a freeze on direct aid to the Palestinian government.

PUTIN - who is arming Syria and Iran - is part of the problem.

MORE PROOF THAT SOCIALIZED/NATIONALIZED/UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE SUCKS ... BIGTIME!

BBC:

A quarter of local health groups in England are asking patients to wait longer for hospital care to bring down NHS deficits, a BBC survey suggests. Two thirds of the 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) responded.

Some are imposing minimum waiting times, while others are telling patients and GPs they won't pay for some treatments until April. Health minister Caroline Flint said some areas had to "live within their means" but patients would not suffer.

In some areas patients are even finding that certain treatments have simply been taken off the list for NHS funding.

This is simply MORE PROOF that nationalized/socialized/universal healthcare SUCKS.

AS THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS PREDICTED: organized jihado-violence erupts at Temple Mount - UPDATED AND BUMPED

AP:

Israeli police stormed Islam's third holiest shrine Friday after hundreds of angry Islamic worshippers threw stones and bottles in an eruption of outrage over contentious Israeli renovation work at a disputed Old City holy site.

About 200 police streamed on to the hilltop compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount, to try to quell the violence, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Witnesses said police hurled stun grenades. Police said several protesters and several officers were injured in the faceoff, but gave no further details. As many as 300 protesters barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque at the compound. Police were stationed near the mosque, but did not enter it.

The protesters are angry about Israeli repair work on an earthen ramp leading to the hilltop compound, which they fear will damage the mosque.

Which they "FEAR" will damage the site. An UNBASED fear deliberately stoked by the enemies of Peace and civilization: the jihado-maniacs who want to wipe Israel off the map. We predicted this earlier in the week - before anyone else.

BTW: the photo at left shows that when the Muslim/Turks controlled the region the SO CALLED "al Aksa Mosque" WAS IN TOTAL DISREPAIR AND WAS UNIMPORTANT TO MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE.

More HERE. And BIBI agreeing with TAB HERE:

The recent protests on the Temple Mount are actually an old technique. This is meant to stir up religious fervor.

Until jihadomania is utterly vanquished, the civilized West will be at war with these barbarian terrorists and liars.

UPDATED AND BUMPED: NYTIMES:

''There is no justification for what they did today, and we think it was pre-orchestrated to bring fears to the spirits of the worshippers angry about the Israeli dig,'' said Adnan Husseini, chairman of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the shrine. ... Israeli authorities have insisted that the replacement of a ramp leading to the compound, which was damaged in a 2004 snowstorm, would not harm the holy site, about 60 yards way.

Missouri Lawmaker proposes apology for slavery

We read:

"The state would formally apologize for permitting more than 140 years of slavery under a proposal that would make Missouri one of the first in the country to make such a move.

The resolution, which details the history of Missouri slavery, states that "an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices cannot ease the past, but confession of the wrongs can speed racial healing and reconciliation."

Rep. Talibdin El-Amin said Missouri should be one of the first states to apologize for slavery because the Dred Scott case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court cited the Constitution in a ruling that upheld slavery, originated in Missouri.

Source

How can anybody apologize for something they did not do? Maybe under the Soviet system you sometimes had to but under a Western legal system I am not responsible for anything my grandfather did nor is anybody else. One can of course express regret about what others do or did but that is not an apology. An apology assumes that I myself did something wrong. What did the present inhabitants of Missouri do wrong?

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

ET TU BRUTE?

The warring factions of the Palestinian Terror Movement have concluded negotiations and celebrated their "agreement" with a toga party in Mecca. Most of the MainStreamMedia is gushing with positive spin while the governments of Israel and the United States are more circumspect. I do not expect much improvement over the status quo. It is a serious effort on behalf of the Saudis to end the "blockade" - and it may succeed.

ENDING ABORTION

Why are pro-lifers smiling?

World Net Daily's magazine Whistleblower explains:

* "Unless drastic changes are made, American women will lose the right to abortion and the [U.S.] Supreme Court won’t be the cause of it ... the reason will be that physicians either can't or won't perform this essential service." – Barbara Radford, former director, National Abortion Federation

* "... the greatest threat to abortion rights may no longer be anti-choice judges and politicians, but diminished access to abortion services ..." – Nita Lowey, pro-abortion congresswoman, New York's 18th congressional district

* "... the availability of abortions is diminishing because fewer doctors are willing to perform the procedure." – The Washington Post

* "Those who run abortion clinics, even in large cities, say that recruiting doctors is now their most serious problem." – The San Francisco Chronicle

* "... no doctors want to come and work in abortion clinics. Guess what? No nurses want to come and work in abortion clinics." – Genevieve Grein, manager, Choice Medical Group, Santa Cruz, Calif.

* "Abortion is a matter of choice in this country not only for women but for physicians as well. All over the country, most physicians are choosing not to do it …" – American Medical News

We don't often get good news when it comes to the pro-life issue so I found this extremely encouraging. It is nice to know that those of us who value life are having some victories in the culture war.

MUSLIMS IN FRANCE CONVERTING TO CHRISTIANITY BY THOUSANDS

Zee News from India has some great news from France, (except for those who have to go into hiding) about how tons of Muslims are converting every year to Christianity (via IRIS Blog):

Muslims are converting to Christianity in their thousands in France but face exclusion from their families and even death threats.

Most Muslims hide their conversion and Protestant ministers do their utmost to protect new converts. It is estimated that every year in the world some six million Muslims convert to Christianity.

The Muezzin call to prayer. But here in France it is no longer reaching all Muslim ears.

Around 15,000 Muslims each year are converting to Christianity - around 10,000 to Catholicism and 5,000 to Protestantism.

[...]

Many Muslims in France hide their conversion but the trend is continuing. World wide around six million Muslims a year convert to Christianity.

If my estimates are correct, the Muslims population in France may actually be shrinking, as many of them turn to Christianity instead.

QUESTION: If the globe is warming, then why is there 7 feet of snow upstate?

AP:

OSWEGO, N.Y. - While the northern Plains and Northeast shiver in dangerously cold temperatures, the folks in upstate New York are keeping warm shoveling snow - lots of snow. Since Sunday, the small towns of Parish and Mexico have recorded more than 6 feet of snow, and forecasters with the National Weather Service say it isn't over yet.

Another 2 feet or more of heavy lake effect snow was expected Thursday for the communities along eastern Lake Ontario, and more squalls are likely through the weekend. "We're just trying to keep up. It's almost an unreal amount," said Mayor Randy Bateman of Oswego, where 70 inches of snow had fallen by Thursday morning. "We catch up when it stops, but then it just comes again, even heavier."

Just as the Left would like us to ignore the fact that socialism has always failed - and has ALWAYS been out-performed by the free market, and ignore the fact that South Vietnam didn't fall until 1975, (two years AFTER the last US combat troop left, and ONLY after the Democrat controlled Congress abandoned support for the SVG), and ignore the fact the virtually ALL terror in the world is committed in the name of Islam, (NOT "radical islam"), and ignore the fact that appeasement has NEVER worked, and ignore the fact that we are NOT running out of natural resources, and ignore the fact that the rich are paying a higher percentage of revenues to the US now than under Clinton, and ignore the fact that the economy is GREAT, and ignore the fact that the UN is an ineffective cesspool of corruption... they'd like us to ignore the weather. (More HERE.)

RIGHT VERSUS LEFT: PERSUASION VERSUS COERCION

DR. SANITY:

The do-gooder leftist in all the various ideological incarnations--the antiwar crowd, the environmental crowd, the communists, socialists, and assorted collectivists--offers the rationale that he does what he does for the "common good" and for "social justice", "peace" and "brotherhood". His high-minded, self-righteous rhetoric justifies (to him anyway) imposing his will and beliefs on others for their own good; and he will not hesitate to use whatever coercive capability he has at hand to get others to do what he wants and what he says.

The capitalist, on the other hand, is overtly out to pursue his own selfish profit, and understands he must use persuasion. That is, he must convince people that his ideas and the products of his mind are better than all the rest so that they will be willing to part with their hard-earned money to possess them. His desire for power over others is manifested in an indirect manner because people must want what he has to offer and believe that they will benefit from an interaction with him.

RWTW.

MORE GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA AND HYPOCRISY: GORE TAKES CHINA'S SIDE AGAINST THE USA

GORE IS A TRAITOR AND A HYSTERICAL WHINER. HERE'S PROOF, FROM AP:

Emerging economies such as China are justified in holding back on fighting greenhouse gas emissions until richer polluters like the United States do more to solve the problem, former Vice President Al Gore said Wednesday.

THE FACT THAT CHINA AND INDIA WERE EXEMPTED FROM KYOTO IS PRECISELY WHY IT WAS VOTED DOWN IN 1998 BY 95-0. EVEN KERRY VOTED AGAINST IT.

AND IF REDUCING GREENHOUSE GASES WERE REALLY SO EFFIN' PARAMOUNT TO SAVING HUMANITY - (IF NOT ALL LIFE ON EARTH!) - THEN IT SHOULD NOT MATTER WHICH NATION PRODUCES THWM; IT MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS.

BUT GORE GIVES THE SOCIALIST TYRANTS IN CHINA A PASS. IT DOESN'T GET MORE HYPOCRITICAL THAN THAT.

(ARE THERE ANY SOCIALIST TYRANNIES THE POST MODERN LEFT DOESN'T LIKE!? NO! THEY WOULD FAVOR ANY SOCIALIST - OR THIRD WORLD - TYRANNY OVER THE USA AND THE WEST. HECK: IT VIRTUALLY DEFINES POST MODERNISM.)

NEED MORE PROOF THAT THE ENTIRE MAN-MADE GREENHOUSE GASES DEBATE IS A POST MODERN LEFTIST ATTACK ON THE WEST? WELL, HERE'S ANOTHER EXAMPLE:

China produces about 14.5% of the planet’s alleged global warming emissions. Australia produces only 1.6%. Which leads the Sydney Morning Herald’s Mary-Anne Toy to ask:

Is it fair to expect China to cut carbon emissions, which per capita are a tiny fraction of Australia’s?

Well, it depends; are you opposed to carbon emissions, or opposed to Australia?

40% OF UK DOCTORS PREFER PRIVATE HEATHCARE FOR THEMSELVES

THEMS THE FACTS.

WHICH PROVES ONCE AGAIN THAT NATIONALIZED/SOCIALIZED/UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE SUCKS.

WIMPY HOLLYWOOD

Author Andrew Klavan writes on the Jewish World Review about how Hollywood is too timid to deal with the subject of the war on terror.

Me, I certainly hope that someday, it will be possible to do so, but I suspect that it'll only be after conservatives are allowed to have their say for real in showbiz.

An Arab-American Speaks Out In Defense of "24"

An excerpt:

"I am an Arab-American as well as a fan of "24." The two things are not mutually exclusive, despite what the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other such groups have to say about this season's opening episodes possibly increasing anti-Muslim and anti-Arab prejudice in American society.

Most of the terrorists represented in "24" through the years have been Arab Muslims. Why? Well, probably because most terrorists today are, in fact, Arab Muslims. As a descendant of Syrian Muslims, I am very well aware that the majority of Muslims world-wide are peaceful, hard working, and law abiding. That still does not change the fact that the greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. today comes not from the ETA, the IRA, etc., but from one group: Islamic terrorists.

And this is what makes "24" a compelling drama every week. Instead of pretending Islamic terrorists don't exist, the show presents frighteningly real worst-case scenarios perpetrated by Osama bin Laden's followers. So CAIR thinks it's over the top for the terrorists in "24" to blow up Los Angeles with a nuke? Please, if bin Laden and his crew had nukes, most of us would be way too dead to argue over such points

Posted by JR; email me (John Ray) here.)

ARTICLES RECENTLY UP ON ICJS

ICJS is an Australian site that tries to expose and counteract media bias against Israel

The Left is onside with hate
Different sheiks shake the culture
ABC must put national values first
Fight for global Islamic state, conference told
Statement by Dr Salam Fayad
Islam and Western liberal democracy are incompatible
Combating Islamic Extremism
Nuclear program legitimises Iran's threat
Fairfax boss was troubled by left-leaning editorial culture
Islamic Prejudice, Islamic Denial
Islamic ticket sends all the wrong messages
Instinctive bias not among ABC's virtues
Concern about growing Muslim antisemitism
Muslim Womens rights
Ideology must not be allowed to trump reality in Iraq
Expert Search to combat antisemitism and racism
Hilali ridicules nation of convicts
Local push for Islamic state
Radical Islam & British universities
A sovereign Palestine? No chance
Free rein for media monitor

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

Cicero's Warning: right then; right now

CICERO:

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero 42 B.C

The left today would have shouted back with "Don’t mistake protest for being unpatriotic"

WHAT DO LEFTISM, KYOTO, SADDAM AND THE UN HAVE IN COMMON? A CORRUPT PINKO NAMED MAURICE STRONG - and he ain't alone!

FOX/ROSSETT - (hat tip Glenn):

Officially, Strong cut his ties to the U.N. Secretariat almost two years ago, as federal investigators homed in on the discovery that back in 1997, while serving as a top adviser to then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he took a check for almost $1 million that was bankrolled by Saddam Hussein’s U.N.-sanctioned regime. The check was delivered by a South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, who was convicted last summer in New York Federal Court of conspiring to bribe U.N. officials on behalf of Baghdad. Strong denied any wrongdoing and said he would step aside from his U.N. envoy post until the matter was cleared up.

Since then, Strong has receded, as he often does, into the shadows. He is currently spending most of his time in China. His name flickered recently through the speaker lineup for a gala dinner for clean technologies in San Francisco, but the organizers say he then canceled because “he has so much going on” in China.

China is a special place for Strong, a self-declared, life-long socialist. It is the burial place of a woman said to be one of his relatives, the famous pro-communist American journalist Anna Louise Strong, a vociferous supporter of Lenin and Stalin until the mid-‘30s, and a strong booster of Mao Zedong’s China. Maurice Strong’s presence in Beijing, however, raises awkward questions: For one thing, China, while one of the world’s biggest producers of industrial pollution, has been profiting from the trading of carbon emissions credits – thanks to heavily politicized U.N.-backed environmental deals engineered by Strong in the 1990s.

Man-made global warming is a sham perpetrated by leftists in order to construct a global tax-attack against industrialism, modernism, free trade and the free market. Like all leftist schemes it is really about their elitism and their bossiness and their covetousness. WE MUSTN'T LET THEM USE THE MSM TO CRANK UP HYSTERIA IN ORDER TO MAKE THEIR SCHEMES LAW.

TODAY'S MUST READS ON LIBBY AND PLAMEGATE, or "Fitzgerald = Nifong"

READ THIS, AND THEN THIS - (BY TOM MCGUIRE/JustOneMinute).




AND THEN THIS BY ANN.

UNASSAILABLE TRUTHS: (1) Bush spoke the truth with those 16 words in the SOTU; (2) Wilson LIED about it; (2) Armitage was the LEAKER; (4) Libby misremembered.

WHY DO WE KNOW THAT LIBBY MIS-REMEBERED? Because the 16 words were true, and because Cheney had NOTHING to do with Wilson going to Niger for the CIA, and because Libby had no motive to lie (because he KNEW he wasn't the leaker).

There is NO CASE AGAINST LIBBY. It's a bogus hit-job.

BOTTOM-LINE: FITZGERALD IS NO BETTER THAN NIFONG. THEY ARE BOTH SCUM.

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS LGF... AGAIN!

TODAY ON LGF:

Iran Calls on Muslims to Retaliate for Temple Mount Work

The head ayatollah called today on all Islamic nations to rise up and punish Israel. (Yes, again.)

This time it’s for construction work at the Temple Mount, one of Judaism’s holiest sites—and one of Islam’s longest-running brazen hoaxes: Iranian Urges Action Vs. Holy Site Work.

TAB had this yesterday (BEFORE LGF) - and linked to a TAB post from LAST YEAR in which we debunked the AL AKSA MOSQUE BS. We predicted that the jihado-maniacs would try to use this as a pretext for another intifada, or at least to unite Fatah and Hamas. And Iran - which backs Hamas (and Hizballah) is doing just that.

TAB also posted on the anti-semitic DHIMMI CARTER's response to the Simon Weisenthal Center's criticism of his book - A DAY BEFORE LGF.

Which all just proves - once again - that TAB is the place to be for the best in the latest news with original HARD-HITTING analysis and commentary.

It either proves that, or that Charles reads TAB everyday! Heh.

And read this article about AL AKSA; (hat tip LGF).

AYAAN HIRSI ALI ON ALAN COLMES SHOW

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was interviewed recently on Alan Colmes' show on FOX. Hot Air has the video.

She's also got a new book coming out called Infidel. It's a little odd that that's the title, given that if it's primarily about her life, then surely "Apostate" would be a more ideal title.

King Fahd Academy

The King Fahd Academy is in West London:



Are the same textbooks being used at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County, Virginia? Read this February 23, 2005 press release from Senator Charles Schumer. Excerpt:

Today, Sen. Charles E. Schumer questioned whether the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Virginia, is another example of radical Islamic madrassas funded by and linked to terrorism here and abroad. Yesterday it was reported that a recent graduate, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, of the Academy was indicted on charges of providing material support to terrorists and in conspiring to assassinate the President of the United States. Sen. Schumer immediately called for an investigation into the funding of the Academy by the Justice Department, and is now urging the Saudi Arabian Ambassador, Prince Bandar, to further disclose the nature and funding of the school.

“We need to know if the Islamic Saudi Academy is another example of the Saudi government turning a blind eye to terrorism. I hope that the ISA is not another madrassa in the United States,” Schumer stated....

[Hat-tip to Woman Honor Thyself for the above video]

SUMMING UP IPCC

An email to Benny Peiser from S. Fred Singer [singer@sepp.org]

1. Granted that world climate has warmed since 1975 - although it hasn't since 1998 - what is the cause? Is it natural or human? That's the key question. The IPCC claims it is "very likely" that human-produced greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are the main cause. But what is their evidence? Correlation does not establish a cause; what about 1940-1975 when climate cooled while CO2 rose?

2. Agreement of the global mean trend with the result of a particular climate model is certainly fortuitous. Models provide a wide choice of trends - from 1.4 C to 11.5 C per century. More important, the IPCC ignores the evidence that patterns of warming, temperature trends versus latitude and altitude, disagree with greenhouse models. The inevitable conclusion - in direct contradiction to IPCC - must be: The human contribution to current warming is minor; most of it must be due to natural causes.

3. If indeed natural causes, most likely solar variability, outweigh human causes, then there is little that one can do - even with extreme measures of mitigation. [It is agreed by all that Kyoto is quite ineffective; at very best, a reduction of only 0.07 C by 2050.]

4. So what is left? Adaptation to inevitable climate change - as humanity has done for millennia. And many economists conclude that a warmer climate would be beneficial overall. Temperatures will continue to fluctuate with natural cycles and sea levels will continue to rise, as they have since the peak of the most recent ice age 18,000 years ago.

(Background on Prof. Singer here)

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

REPUBLICANS HAVE A BACKBONE AND THE RESOLUTION FAILS

Lieberman Iraq Speech (part 1)

Part 2

Kudos to the Republicans who stood strong on this despite the betrayals of Collins and Coleman. Kudos also to Lieberman who gave such a great speech it warranted being put on a conservative blog. For the rest of the story go here!

THE NEW AL AKSA PROPAGANDA

HAARETZ: Abbas: Dig near Al-Aqsa Mosque likely to endanger peace efforts

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday said that Israeli excavation works near the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem were likely to endanger regional peace efforts, Israel Radio reported. Abbas added that the excavations demonstrated Israel's intentions to destroy holy Islamic sites, according to the radio.

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday said the excavation has led to a dangerous rise in Middle East tensions and could derail the revival of Arab-Israeli peace talks. "What Israel is doing in its practices and attacks against our sacred Muslim sites in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa is a blatant violation that is not acceptable under any pretext," the monarch was quoted by the state news agency Petra as saying. "These measures will only create an atmosphere that will not at all help in the success of efforts being undertaken to restore the peace process," the monarch said. "This is a dangerous escalation we have seen in the last few hours ... these works and excavations pose a threat to the foundations of al-Aqsa," he added.

Police on Tuesday arrested four Muslim worshippers who threw stones at the Israel Antiquities Authority excavation underneath Mugrabi gate in Jerusalem's Old City.

The dig is part of a plan to rebuild the Mugrabi bridge walkway planned to run from the Dung gate to the Mugrabi gate, which serves as the primary entrance to the compound referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as al-Haram al-Sherif, the Noble Sanctuary. The digging will use smaller excavating tools, and will be supervised by a team of archaeologists. The excavations are intended to strengthen the support columns of the Mugrabi bridge.

THIS COMPLAINT IS UTTER BS. IMHO: It is a pretext for launching another intifada - as a way of uniting Hamas and Fatah. (The Sharon visit was similarly a bogus pretext for a long-planned jihadoterrorist offensive.)

MORE ON THE "SO-CALLED AL AKSA MOSQUE" HERE.

THE DANISH MODEL

No, not Helena Christensen!

A great post from GATES OF VIENNA on how Denmark is confronting creeping islamicization.

There are lessons here for us all.

RTWT.

IS RUDY OUR CHIRAC?

Some think Rudy walks on water - (a GOP Obama!). Some are comparing Rudy to McCain in 2000 - and feel that the right-wing base of the GOP will prove his undoing in '08 as it undid McCain in 2000; (today, McCain leads Rudy in SC). Some creatively compare him to Nixon.

MAYBE RUDY WILL REALLY BE MORE LIKE CHIRAC? Like Rudy; Chirac was a dynamic right-of-center mayor who turned around the city he loved. And then.... well, Chirac has been a disaster as France's president, and many members of his corrupt municipal machine have been indicted - and so will Chirac the day he leaves office and loses his immunity.

I have confidence that the campaign will sufficiently vet all the candidates - including Rudy, and that therefore if he has some skeletons in his closet that they will come out.

That is unless the right-wing blogosphere let's him off the hook, and if he gets a pass from the left-wing MSM because he is pro-choice and anti-gun.

DON'T GET ME WRONG: based on what I know today I could easily vote for Rudy. I just HOPE he is tested/vetted BEFORE he gets the nomination. I don't want him to become a Kerry-like candidate (who wins the nomination too easily and then proves to be a crappy candidate). And - were he to win the presidency - I wouldn't want him to become another like BJ Clinton - whose personal "issues" led this nation to suffer from 8 years of scandal.

[ASIDE: Who do you think would make the best Veep for Rudy - you know, balance the ticket?

I think that Ridge would help any GOP candidate take PA, and the GOP might easily lose OH in '08, and so they need to take PA. But like Rudy, Ridge is a NE Catholic who is pro-choice. This might make the GOP more vulnerable in the West and the South. Jeb could help Rudy win FL and in the South, but Jeb has a last name which MIGHT be a drag on the ticket. Mitt is another NE'er - granted, one with ties to the West. McCain might help out West, but nowhere else. Huckabee might help in the South, but nowhere else. Then there's Cornyn - a SOLID conservative who would help in the South and the SW. ANY SUGGESTIONS?]

MORE PROOF DHIMMI CARTER IS AN ANTI-SEMITE

SWC:

In reaction to SWC's 25,000 signed petitions that were sent to former US President Jimmy Carter protesting his book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter has responded.

In a hand-written letter to Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Center’s dean and founder, President Carter accused the Center of "falsehood and slander."

Rabbi Hier responded, in part, "Let me say, Mr. President, that I am not one who believes that Israel is infallible ... the only reason there is no peace in the Middle East is because of Islamic extremists who refuse to compromise, not because of the State of Israel.”

Read the exchange of letters between President Carter and Rabbi Hier.

GLOBAL WARMING?? ASK A CAMBODIAN!

CSM:

Across Cambodia, residents have been engaging in a rare activity: turning off their air conditioners and stilling their fans. Some of Phnom Penh's intrepid moto drivers have even been seen zipping around the streets at night in puffy parkas.

It has been cold here – the coldest in 27 years of recorded history, according to Seth Vannareth, the director of meteorology at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology. As the cold settled in, she counseled this correspondent to "please take a coat with you." Yesterday, she had good news: The cold spell was officially over.

Still, for Cambodians, the brief flirtation with sweater weather has been such a far cry from the norms of the cold season, which peaks in early January, that some people were even wearing socks. The cold snap began on Jan. 30. Low temperatures have ranged from 7 to 15 degrees C (mid-40s to mid-50s F.) in the northeast and mountainous areas, far below norms of 17 to 20 degrees C.

How do you say Brrrrr! in Cambodian? And how do you say STFU to the eco-nutsies? BTW: New Zealand and parts of Australia had their COLDEST summer ever, too.

TRAITORS IN BRITAIN

The Guardian talks (very misleadingly at that) about a couple of self-hating Jews in Britain who consider the rights of palestinians more important than Jewish rights:

A group of prominent British Jews will today declare independence from the country's Jewish establishment, arguing that it puts support for Israel above the human rights of Palestinians.

Mistake number one.

Independent Jewish Voices will publish an open letter on the Guardian's Comment is Free website calling for a freer debate about the Middle East within the Jewish community. Among the more than 130 signatories are Stephen Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Jenny Diski and Nicole Farhi, as well as leading academics such as Eric Hobsbawm and Susie Orbach.

No freer than any other debate to come down the pike in Britain since who knows when.

"We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole," the letter says. Jewish leaders in Britain, it argues "put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people" in conflict with Jewish principles of justice and compassion.

The statement does not name the institutions it is criticising. But one signatory, Brian Klug, an Oxford philosopher, writing an accompanying article on Comment is Free, singles out the Board of Deputies of British Jews for calling itself "the voice of British Jewry" while devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defence of Israel".

Mr Klug also criticises Britain's chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, for telling a pro-Israeli rally in London last year: "Israel, you make us proud."

"Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," Mr Klug writes.

Just who exactly might that be? I can't tell. All I can tell is that this is one of quite a few very sneakily crafted anti-Israel reports from one of Britain's worst newspapers, paying lip service to a bunch of traitors with no attachment to their country of origin. And it even implies that a]Israel's government is not legitimate and b] Britain's Jewish institutions are only supposed to concern themselves with local matters, and not have a single concern about Israel. I have nothing but feelings of disgust for these traitors, who wouldn't be speaking for me if I lived in England.

LEFTIST IRRATIONALITY ABOUT ISLAM

An excerpt from Dr Sanity:

An alternative strategy adopted by those desperate to deny reality is to insist that merely by responding to terror attacks, we are creating more terrorists. In other words, if we just close our eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, it will all magically go away and everything will be hunky-dory. Oh, and by the way, it isn't historically significant anyway.

Those who profess this irrational perspective never seem to contemplate the reality that since the first WTC bombing--and even before then-- the U.S. followed that course and did very little to comprehensively respond to the rising terrorist threat in the world. And yet, 9/11 still happened. The Balinese did nothing, and yet, the Bali bombings still happened. The Spanish were opposed to the war, and yet, the Madrid bombings still happened. The British, the French, and the Dutch welcomed immigrants from Islam, and yet.... you get the point.

Terrorism has been on the rise since the first time the West appeased its violence and gave into its unreasonable demands, all the while pretending that the blackmail was reasonable and that the violence was only a problem confined to a few backward areas of the world (remember the Iran hostage taking in '79? Remember the Somalia debacle?). But those "few backward areas of the world" keep on expanding into the civilized one. As do the demands of the blackmailers.

The West closed its eyes and resolutely kept them shut for a quarter century. And still the terrorist threat continued to rise and their demands grew ever shriller and more insistent. The madrassas they set up both in their own lands and in the West had been teaching hate for more than a decade before 9/11. The nations of the Middle East were trying to wipe Israel off the map long before 9/11; the Palestinians under the Nobel Peace Prize winner Arafat were still enthusiastically blowing up innocents; but still, both they and their enablers on the left would have you believe that America brought 9/11 on itself; that America (or Israel) is the cause behind all their violence and deathl; and that America acting against Islam's documented desire for peace is only making it worse.

We hear issuing forth from the peaceful adherents of Islam, "Death to America!"; "Death to Israel"; "Death to those who insult Islam"; death, death and more death; always death. But the clear thinkers of the MSM and the left keep telling us that we are the ones who want to kill them. They want peace and brotherhood. Yeah, right.

(For more postings from me, see POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, DISSECTING LEFTISM My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

SO HAPPY TO BE IN AMERICA

Buried in this article about Ethiopian Television Network, a new broadcast company being launched in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 1, was the following:

Perhaps no one feels more reborn through ETN than Eyassu, who spent 25 years as an editor and writer for various media in Ethiopia. He tried his hand as a foreign correspondent when he arrived in Northern Virginia in 1994, but it paid poorly. When ETN came calling, he was so overjoyed that he offered to work for free.

"It's hard to leave a career behind, let alone to bus driving," said Eyassu, 59, a ground transportation supervisor at Dulles International Airport.

For all my bitching about what's wrong with America, when I read something like the above, I realize how blest I am to have been born an American.

RUDY IS IN!!

I watched him talk to Sean Hannity about the crucial issues and I have to admit I was pretty impressed. His answers on guns and marriage both worked for me.

I am still nervous about him not being pro-life but his assurances on picking good judges confirmed my hunch that he would pick strict constructionists.



The fact that he even used the word strict constructionists and that he loves Scalia, Roberts and Alito was music to my ears. That is the area where the pro-life issue is most important.

He is awesome on taxes and stellar on terrorism. He is pro-school choice which is a big issue for me. Overall, I was encouraged.

Afterwards Dick Morris was on the show and talked about his meeting with some right wingers. He said he was shocked (I was not) that when he asked them if Republicans could get over McCain's issues 75% of them said they couldn't and when he asked them the same question about Giuliani it was the exact opposite of 75% saying they could. Rudy over McCain any day!!

UNIFIL ENABLED HEZBOLLAH TO PLANT BOMBS AT THE BORDER

The UN's continuing corruptness is exposed once again:

Defense officials slammed UNIFIL and the Lebanese government Monday night, claiming that their "slackness" was what enabled Hizbullah to plant five deadly explosive devices along the border between Israel and Lebanon. IDF officials said it was possible that the bombs were planted as part of a planned kidnapping attack similar to the July 12 abduction of reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser that sparked the war this past summer. [...] The Northern Command assessed that the bombs found on Monday, just north of Avivim and right along the Blue Line international border between Israel and Lebanon, were planted there only a few days ago by Hizbullah.

Soldiers from Engineering Battalion 630 under the command of Lt.-Col. Eran Pauker discovered one of the explosive devices during a routine patrol along the border. The bombs - weighing between 15 to 20 kilograms each - were made of high-grade explosives and were disguised as boulders to blend in with the rocky terrain.

"We are deployed well along the border and do all we can to prevent Hizbullah from even getting close to Israel," said Pauker. "Due to bad weather, however, it is possible for them to get close to the border without us or UNIFIL noticing." The soldiers did not cross the border, but instead detonated the bombs by shooting at them from a distance. IDF sources in the Northern Command described the incident as "an operational success," claiming that in the past it had sometimes taken the IDF months to discover Hizbullah bombs and bunkers along the border.

UNIFIL is unlikely to improve, and this is another reason to look down upon them in disgrace. (The two pictures above show the bomb discovered before and after it was blown up by the army to make sure it wouldn't post a danger again.)

Muslim lobby seeks to muzzle Glenn Beck

The Saudi-funded Muslim lobby has found a new target: a conservative broadcaster that warns of terrorist plots against the United States. Arab and Muslim groups have launched a campaign to block the hiring of Glenn Beck as a commentator on ABC's "Good Morning America." The Arab American Institute, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and Muslim Public Affairs Council, said Mr. Beck engages in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric and his hiring would incite hatred....

In a Jan. 18 letter, ABC President David Westin appeared to rule out any reversal of his decision to hire Mr. Beck. But he said "Good Morning America" senior executive producer Jim Murphy would be in touch with the organizers to discuss how ABC would respond to any statements by Mr. Beck that would anger the Muslim lobbyists.

Source -- [The Leftist Media Matters site has some grumbles about the above report but carefully avoids to tackle the free speech issues involved. They probably don't believe there are any -- except for themselves, of course.]

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)