JUDGE HAS SOME STERN WARNINGS FOR LEV TAHOR

The judge overseeing the case of the Islamized Haredi cult sent them a message:

A Superior Court judge had harsh words for Lev Tahor parents at their appeal hearing Thursday.

“As soon as you step into the borders of this country, the parent child relationship engages not only moral obligations but legal ones as well. The legal obligation you have right now is to your children to make sure that they remain within the jurisdiction of the court as the court orders. The conduct of the community has not raised any trust that you will remain within the jurisdiction of this court,” said Superior Court of Justice Judge Lynda Templeton.

“I can guarantee you will receive fair hearings, but you must allow the court to do its work,” she said.

The hearing was the second attempt to hear an appeal over Ontario Court of Justice Judge Stephen Fuerth’s February decision to send some Lev Tahor children back to Quebec so that a child protection order could be executed in that province. The group first fled Quebec in November, then 14 children and their parents fled Chatham ahead of the appeal.

Templeton adjourned Friday’s appeal arguments until April 9, but ordered Chatham-Kent Children’s Services to arrange supervised visits with the seven children who remain in foster care.

Someone might want to suggest the parents distance themselves from Shlomo Helbrans and his ilk if they even want to be in charge of their children again. If they act upon his ideas and his alone, without a trace of free will or thinking for themselves, then they're obviously not acting in the better interest of their children.

Eight of the children who fled the region have since been apprehended and placed in foster care. One of the original eight children, who is 17 and also a parent, was released from care Friday because of her age. The identities of the children who are part of the action are protected by a publication ban.

“I am also going to say to (the 17-year-old), go with your parents, stay with your parents. You’re old enough now to make your own decisions, but I am not going to suggest the release of your baby to you until I am absolutely satisfied that the baby is … healthy and … ready to be looked after by you and that you have the skills to look after that child,” said Templeton to the girl, who was in the court room.

If that young mother is under the influence of the cult, then she's not qualified to look after the child and its well-being.

Templeton issued a complete transcript Friday. It paints a picture of a sudden flight from the country and a leadership that tightly controls the sect. One leader, Nachman Helbrans, told a children’s aid worker that his sister was indeed married at 15 despite the community denying such practices.

That only confirms he didn't act in his sister's best interests either.

Update: The Toronto Sun says the cult's now considered a flight risk, with good reason:

They operate as a world unto their own, travelling the world for sanctuary, but for at least three members of the Lev Tahor ultra orthodox Jewish sect, Canada will harbour them no more.

While their friends were in a Chatham court, fighting to get back some of their children seized over allegations of child abuse, three others appeared at a detention review in Toronto Friday where the Immigration and Refugee Board ordered them held in custody until they can be deported back to Israel.

Lev Tahor (which means pure heart) give true meaning to the adage about wandering Jews.

Founded in Israel by charismatic Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, the extremist community is shunned by mainstream Judaism for its anti-Zionism (they believe the state of Israel can’t exist until the Messiah comes) and harsh interpretation of the Torah.

Its members moved with their leader to Brooklyn where Helbrans was convicted of kidnapping in 1994 after one of his students, a secular 13-year-old boy, disappeared for two years after the rabbi refused to return him to his mother, “the devil.”

That vile man called the guy's mother a "devil"? Or did he influence the son to say something so offensive? Either way, Helbrans is guilty, and he should be ashamed of himself.

Released on parole after serving two years, Helbrans was deported to Israel in 2000 but soon took his followers back across the world, this time to Ste. Agathe, Que.

They lived quietly in the small Laurentian town, their community easily identifiable by the women dressed head to toe in black with only their faces and hands showing and the men with long sideburns and shaved heads. But they fled in the middle of the night last November amid a child-welfare investigation involving allegations of abuse and neglect, including forced marriages of girls as young as 14.

There's something else I've noticed at times on some Haredi men: they shave the top of their heads but keep the sidelocks/burns along with beards. IMO, it's just as distasteful they do such a thing as it is to have the women follow such an example and wear wigs instead of their own hair.

...it was hardly surprising that after hearing their cases, IRB member Andrew Laut refused a request by lawyer Guidy Mamann to release them pending their removal from Canada — he saw nothing to suggest they would now show up as required.

From the hearing it was clear that Lev Tahor may be an insular sect but they certainly know their way around the ever lenient Canadian immigration system.

Avraham Kabaz Kashani, 39, was ordered out of Canada in July 2007 after exhausting years of appeals, including a failed refugee bid. The father of 10 children didn’t report for his removal and remained here illegally until this week’s arrest seven years later.

“I didn’t run, I didn’t hide. I stayed in the same house. I didn’t change my name. We said if they want to take us, they will take us,” he told the hearing.

Unconvinced he’d suddenly now obey a directive and show up at the airport, Laut ordered him held in custody until his passport is retrieved and he’s put on a plane for Israel.

And when he gets back here, he'd do well to see a psychologist. No joke.

Odel Malka, covered in a black robe resembling a burka, was also told she must remain in detention. The 30-year-old failed refugee claimant and mother of nine was first ordered to leave in 2002, but didn’t board her plane until March 2012. Ten months later, Malka had slipped back in, claiming now that she used a passport bearing a different name, though it has no entry stamp and there’s no record of her crossing the border. “She did not have consent to return to Canada,” Laut said.

[...] the writing’s on the wall. Canada is no longer a haven for Lev Tahor. The question is where the group will turn up next.

I guess this leaves one vital question: what about extreme Islamist movements in Canada, the kind who influenced Lev Tahor's MO? Will they be allowed to remain? While Lev Tahor is definitely a bad lot, it should in no way obscure the equally serious issue of the authentic brands of Islamofascism who sadly still have a foothold in Canada too. Once Lev Tahor is dealt with, all concerned would be advised to turn their focus to abusive Muslims living in the great white north. But I've a feeling they won't, alas.

CAIR OPPOSES HONOR DIARIES

Andrew McCarthy at National Review wrote about CAIR's jihad against the documentary called Honor Diaries, which features interviews with people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, because they do not want you to know the truth about honor murders against women in Muslim societies. Which only makes this a documentary worth seeing, IMO.

ARE LEFTISTS REALLY "PROGRESSIVES"? NOPE.

The fundamental lie the left tells about change and "progress" is the idea that what they propose is progress.

It is not.

Political changes that reduce individual authority/responsibility/liberty and increase dependency on an increasingly strengthened the state are actually regressive.

Marxists were honest about this - though unintentionally - when they described their goal as "the dictatorship of the proletariat". DICTATORSHIP. What they merely sought to do was replace one set of people comprising the ruling class, with another set of people. They did not seek the liberation of the masses, but subjugation of the masses to the rulers of their choice.

That's not revolutionary; that's a coup d'etat.

Castro overthrew Batista and installed himself just as Lenin had overthrown the Tsar and installed himself.

The American Revolution was the only true revolution; the others that have followed were each reactionary in their own way. Today's "progressives" - like Hitler and his socialist minions of the 1930's, and Mao and Lenin and Stalin and Pol Pot... et al - are reactionaries.

And the people labeled "conservatives" in today's political nomenclature are really classical liberals and are the real progressives.

The reason leftism/statism works politically is simple:

they promise people that they will use their statist powers in ways that will improve many lives at the expense of a few. (And: massive voter fraud.)

In fact what the left proposes always harms everyone.

APART FROM INCREASING PERSONAL LIBERTY, ALL TRUE PROGRESS AND EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER IMPROVED THE QUALITY IF LIFE HAS COME FROM INNOVATIONS, INVENTIONS, AND CONVENIENCES DEVELOPED AND MARKETED BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR.

GOVERNMENT GAVE HUMANITY THE GULAG.
THE PRIVATE SECTOR GAVE US GOOGLE.

6 LEV TAHOR MEMBERS ARRESTED FOR IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS IN CANADA

Some members of Lev Tahor were arrested - deservedly, given what their mindset is like - for remaining in Canada past their visa expiration dates:

CHATHAM, Ont. – Six members of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect were arrested Wednesday by the Canada Border Services Agency over suspected immigration issues, their lawyer said.

Some families in the Lev Tahor community are at the centre of an ongoing child custody case, including one family that fled to Guatemala, but according to a community member those arrested are not involved in the child welfare case.

CBSA agents went looking for seven Lev Tahor members who had either been ordered removed from Canada or had their status expired, said the group’s lawyer, Guidy Mamann.

Five of those people, as well as one other person who was found to have alleged immigration issues, were apprehended, Mamann said. He is working with CBSA to make sure the other two people authorities had been seeking comply, he said.

Members of the community told local radio station Blackburn News that those arrested are Israeli citizens and their visas had expired. One member of the community told The Canadian Press some of those arrested were American citizens.

The seven people arrested are known to have 28 children, Stephen Doig, the executive director of Chatham-Kent Children’s Services. An unknown number of children whose parents were both apprehended were taken into care.

The children were all back in the community hours later, being looked after by relatives or alternate caregivers, Mamann said Wednesday evening.

I'm disappointed with their willingness to return those children to their custody, after all they've been doing. I hope those children will accompany their parents home to Israel and the USA, and not be forced to stay at the enclave.

And again, through their stupid lawyer, they've been donning the victimology guise:

Mamann, who was meeting with Lev Tahor’s spiritual leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans when reached for an interview, said the community was terrified during the CBSA arrests.

“It’s a frightening experience to look up and see 20-some-odd armed officers going from house to house looking for adults and children,” he said.

“These kids witnessed with their own eyes, with their own eyes, that some of their brothers and sisters, some of their friends, some of their neighbours, were taken by children’s aid and never came back. So if you were a child what could you possibly be thinking?”

Mamann, a Toronto-based lawyer who was hired recently, said he is providing a legal strategy for the group that has been lacking.

“That’s why there have been all kinds of difficulties that could have easily been avoided had somebody from the group really understood the legal processes,” he said.

“These people are really fish out of water. They get scared, they run. That’s not a legal strategy.”

No, but neither is acting like victims and as though the reason they're being targeted is because they're Jewish, which is disputable.

And the only reason they're fish out of water is because they've been giving their subjects an education that doesn't teach anything about the outside world, no English or French, and even indoctrinating them to think they'll burn in hell if they don't follow their rules. Sick.

The Toronto Star reveals some more:

One man, who is an American citizen, was sent back to the United States because he said he entered Canada four months ago but CBSA had no record of his entry. The man, who Mamann says has children in the community, was also given a one-year exclusion order. [...]

So at least one of them must've stolen across the border to be with his oh-so vital sect. It's awful how Helbrans has bred a whole list of lemmings.

Three of the members are to appear before a detention hearing soon, and the 7th suspect may have been arrested too. I hope they get thrown out of the country, and, if they come back here, they'll go to a psychologist.

And, here's an op-ed by a member of the Canadian Jewish Congress who abhors the cult's practices.

SUPRISED?

Ahmed Akkari, the young imam who helped fan the flames of hatred during the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis , has revealed that his entourage met with Hamas and Hizbollah while touring the ME to seek support for an indignant and violent response to the Cartoons published by Jyllands Posten.  

Akkari has since renounced his extreme Islamist past and apologised for his actions. He is even gaining praise from rightwing Danish politicians for adding important detail and perspective to the historical record.  

But let this be a warning to those who would like to believe there is some sort of insulating firewall between so-called middle of the road Islamic leaders and the more extreme military terrorist groups.  There isn't.

VIDEO: 1996: ALISTAIR COOKE PIN-POINTED THE MORAL DECAY OF THE WEST AND THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION

ALISTAIR COOKE SAW THAT WESTERN CIVILIZATION WAS IN TROUBLE.

AND WELL BEFORE THE ISLAMIZATION OF THE WEST HAD MUCH IF ANY MOMENTUM.

COOKE SAW THE ABYSS: A RELIGIOUS, MORAL VACUUM THAT WAS TRANSFORMING US INTO SAVAGES AND RENDERING US DEFENSELESS.

HE WAS, IN EFFECT, PREDICTING LONDONISTAN, TWERKING, AND THE SURRENDER OF CRIMEA...

BDS = BAD + DUPLICITOUS + SLANDERERS

LETTERMAN TO RETIRE!

NYPOST:

David Letterman will retire as host of CBS’ “Late Show” in 2015. 

The host announced the news during a taping of Thursday’s show, saying that he will step down when his current contract expires next year. 

“The man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves, he and I have had a relationship for years and years and years, and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance.  And I phoned him just before the program, and I said ‘Leslie, it’s been great, you’ve been great, and the network has been great, but I’m retiring,’” Letterman said.

With a late-night tenure of 32 years (including 21 at “Late Show”), the 66-year-old Letterman is the longest-serving host in late night, having surpassed his mentor Johnny Carson for the title last year.

I SUGGESTED THIS IN FEBRUARY:

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2014

TIME FOR CRANKY OLD LETTERMAN TO QUIT "THE LATE SHOW" AND JOIN 60MINUTES AS "THE NEW ANDY ROONEY"

JUST SAYING...

HE'S AS OLD AS ROONEY WAS AND TWICE AS CRANKY.

LES MOONVES OUGHT TO GET LETTERMAN TO START DOING 60MINUTES BITS NOW...

PREDICTION: Obama will recognize a de facto Palestinian state before a GOP controlled Senate - (which would vehemently oppose such a deal) - is sworn in

WHITE HOUSE DOSSIER: (VIDEO AT LINK)

UN Ambassador Samantha Power Wednesday testified to Congress that should the Palestinian Authority be accepted as a nation-member of UN agencies – it hasn’t applied but it might – the United States should break its commitment to defund any UN outfit that recognizes Palestine as a state. 

POWER:  

The American people and the United States are so much better off when the United States is in good standing within these organizations, defending our interests, fighting for our friends, and not surrendering the playing field to those that would like nothing more than for the United States not to be in these organizations.

In the event that the Palestinians seek and obtain membership in a U.N. agency, the last thing that we want to do is to give them a double win. And it would be a double win for them to secure a win in an agency on the one hand, and then the exclusion of the United States from that very agency, leaving the agency at the mercy of leadership from Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela – the countries that tend to fill the space when we depart . . .

THIS IS ESSENTIALLY SIGNALLING ABBAS TO DO JUST WHAT HE STARTED TO TODAY: ACT UNILATERALLY.

The announcement came shortly after Abbas initiated a move to apply for membership in 15 international organizations. 

Under the terms of the agreement last July that enabled the current round of negotiations – which is set to expire on April 29 – Israel was to release 104 Palestinian security prisoners in four phases, and the Palestinians were to refrain from unilateral moves in the international arena. 

Palestinian officials said Tuesday’s move was a response to Israel’s failure to meet the March 29 deadline for the release of the final batch of prisoners. 

... Abbas’s move was announced following a meeting of PLO and Fatah officials in Ramallah to discuss the current crisis in the talks.
Abbas, who signed the applications for joining the 15 international organizations and treaties, said he did not seek a “clash” with the US administration. 

The signing ceremony was broadcast live on Palestine TV. 

“We want a good relation with the US administration, because it is helping us and making big efforts,” he said. 

Abbas pointed out that the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners was supposed to have gone free on March 29. 

“Since then, we have been promised that the prisoners, who are dear to our hearts and because of whom we refrained over the past nine months from going to the United Nations organizations, would be released,” he said. “Unfortunately each time we are told that the Israeli government would meet to approve their release, but nothing has happened.” 

Abbas said that the PA leadership had made it clear that unless the prisoners were released, “we will start going to and joining 63 international organizations and treaties.” 

He added that the 15 applications he had signed Tuesday night would be sent immediately to the international organizations and conventions.
The PLO and Fatah leaders voted unanimously in favor of the move.

THE PUBLIC "PROTESTS" FROM KERRY ARE BULLSHIT.

THE SWORN TESTIMONY BY POWER IS THE REAL POLICY.

I FEEL THAT OBAMA AND POWER REALIZE THAT ONCE THE GOP CONTROLS THE SENATE, THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO HELP THE PALESTINIANS AND TO SCREW ISRAEL.

SO, THE CLOSER WE GET TO A GOP TAKEOVER OF THE SENATE, THE MORE OBAMA WILL ACT AGGRESSIVELY AGAINST ISRAEL - HOPING TO SEAL A DEAL WHILE HARRY REID CONTROLS A FILIBUSTER-LESS SENATE.

OR OBAMA WILL PROBABLY RECOGNIZE AN INDEPENDENT STATE OF PALESTINE WITH THE LAME DUCK CONGRESS.

HE WOULD HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE AT THAT POINT:

WITH THE CONGRESS UNDER CONTROL OF THE GOP, HE KNOWS HE WON'T BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING DOMESTICALLY, BUT WILL HAVE A FREER HAND TO ACT UNILATERALLY ON FOREIGN POLICY.

HIS HEART HAS ALWAYS BEEN WITH THE ARABS.

HIS LONGTIME ASSOCIATES ON THE LEFT - EDWARD SAID AND RASHID KHALIDI AND LOUIS FARRAKHAN AND REV WRIGHT AND BILL AYERS - ARE ALL FERVENTLY PRO-PALESTINIAN AND TOTALLY ANTI-ISRAEL.

OBAMA WILL DO IT AND JUST SAY HIS POSITION "EVOLVED" - AS HE CLAIMED WITH HIS GAY MARRIAGE REVERSAL.

CLIMATE ALARMISM IS HURTING THE WORLD'S POOR: THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS BJORN LOMBORG BY 8 YEARS

BJORN LOMBORG TODAY:

Britain’s environmentalists proudly announce that households have reduced their electricity consumption by almost 10 per cent since 2005.They seldom mention that this is helped by a 50 per cent increase in electricity prices, in part to pay for Britain increasing its share of renewables from 1.8 per cent to 4.6 per cent. Such a price increase of course hits the poorest hardest. As with many green taxes, it does so because it taxes a basic necessity that makes up a larger proportion of a small budget. Not surprisingly, higher energy prices mean the poor are forced to reduce their electricity consumption far more than the richest, who haven’t reduced their electricity consumption at all. 

Over the past five years, heating a home in the UK has become 63 per cent more expensive, while real wages have declined. Unsurprisingly, a greater number of poor households must spend more than 10 per cent of their income on energy, becoming what is known as energy poor. This category now covers some 17 per cent of all British households. 

Worse, because the elderly are typically poorer, energy poverty affects about a quarter of all households whose inhabitants are over 60. 

Deprived pensioners are spending their days riding heated buses to keep warm, while a third are leaving part of their homes cold. 

... Wealthy homeowners in Bavaria might feel good about installing inefficient solar panels on their roofs, but their lavish subsidies are essentially financed by poor tenants in the Ruhr paying higher electricity costs. 

Climate policies take an even larger toll on people in the developing world. Almost three billion people rely on burning twigs and dung to cook and keep warm. This causes indoor air pollution, at the cost of 4.3 million lives a year, and creates the world’s biggest environmental problem. Access to cheap and plentiful electricity is one of the most effective ways out of poverty — curtailing indoor air pollution and allowing refrigeration to keep food from spoiling (and people from starving). Cheap electricity charges computers that connect the poor to the world. It powers agriculture and businesses that provide jobs and economic growth. 

... In 1971, China derived 40 per cent of its energy from renewables. 

Since then, it has powered its incredible growth almost exclusively on heavily polluting coal, lifting a historic 680 million people out of poverty. Today, China gets a trifling 0.23 per cent of its energy from unreliable wind and solar. 

Yet most Westerners still want to focus on putting up more inefficient solar panels in the developing world. But this infatuation inflicts a real cost. A recent analysis from the Centre for Global Development shows that $10 billion invested in such renewables would help lift 20 million people in Africa out of poverty. It sounds impressive, until you learn that if this sum was spent on gas electrification it would lift 90 million people out of poverty. So in choosing to spend that $10 billion on renewables, we deliberately end up choosing to leave more than 70 million people in darkness and poverty. 

In the West, we take our supply of electricity for granted. After a century, we’ve forgotten that plentiful, affordable and dependable energy is the lifeblood of modern civilisation and prosperity. 

Discussions about saving the world seldom acknowledge the 1.3 billion people living without any electricity whatsoever. Their problems seem otherworldly to us — and we neglect the fact that the same sort of access to cheap electricity would substantially improve their lives. 

When it comes to helping the world’s poor, a topic like climate change seems to interest the West far more than such mundane matters as helping them power their houses.

TAB IN 2006:

 "man-made global-warming' - is merely a theoretical danger, one I am skeptical of because it is a FACT that the globe has had many MANY eras of warming and cooling, ALL before SUV's or man-made "greenhouse gases." 

And then there's this FACT: As CO2 levels increased from 1940-1970, global temperatures DECLINED; this is DISPOSITIVE PROOF; increases in atmospheric CO2 cannot cause global warming. In fact, many areas where we see OBVIOUS warming are places where the local conditions are the cause - like Kilimanjaro and the Arctic. 

People who are more worried about "man-made global warming:" are either DUPES or INSANE; most're victims of a deliberately provoked mass-hysteria perpetrated by politicians who literally and absolutely (and self-admittedly) want to enact laws which give government more control over the marketplace, if not the global economy, and who want to stultify the growth of trade and industrialization - the two economic engines which can actually best END worldwide poverty.

TAB IN OCTOBER 2009: 

WUWT: Thus, empirical data do not support the underlying premise that industrialization of today’s developed countries has caused net harm to developing countries. In fact, a major harm to developing countries seems to have resulted, in part from climate change policies instituted in industrialized countries. 

• WHAT THE THIRD WORLD NEEDS IS INDUSTRIALIZATION AND FREE MARKETS AND FREE TRADE - NOT HANDOUTS OR CARBON SWAPS.
• THE PEOPLE WHO RETARD THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF THE THIRD WORLD ARE THE LEADING CAUSE OF THIRD WORLD POVERTY AND MALNUTRITION AND SHORTER LIVE SPANS.
• WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? ARE THEY BIG CORPORATIONS? GREEDY CAPITALISTS? UNSCRUPULOUS CONSERVATIVES?
• NO, THEY'RE LIBERALS. LIBERALS WHO ADVOCATE THINGS LIKE PROTECTIONISM, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND THE GREEN ECONOMY.
• IN OTHER WORDS:
• TO MAKE THIRD WORLD POVERTY HISTORY WE NEED TO MAKE THE LEFT HISTORY.

TAB IN NOVEMBER 2009:

• Africa doesn't need us to build wind mill farms or solar arrays.
• Africa needs coal burning power plants and factories and sweat shops.
• What prevents this? Who prevents this?
• The Left - the Reds and the Greens.
• If you want to eliminate Third World Poverty you cannot do it with transfers of wealth or "impact-less/sustainable" development.
• Africans need to do there what the Chinese did in China.
• WHAT STOPS THEM?
• The Left - the Greens and the Reds.
• To make poverty history we need to make Leftism history - we need to demolish the Reds and the Greens.

TAB IN JUNE 2010:

PROOF: The leading cause of human suffering in the Third World is the Left

PROOF HERE.

THE THIRD WORLD NEEDS INDUSTRIALIZATION, FREE MARKETS AND FREE TRADE - NOT HANDOUTS OR CARBON SWAPS.

PEOPLE WHO PROMOTE HANDOUTS, A "SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY" AND CARBON SWAPS AND WHO OPPOSE GOOD OL' INDUSTRIALIZATION ARE ACTUALLY THE LEADING CAUSE OF THIRD WORLD POVERTY, MALNUTRITION AND SHORTER LIVE SPANS.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

ARE THEY BIG CORPORATIONS?

GREEDY CAPITALISTS?

UNSCRUPULOUS CONSERVATIVES?

NO, THEY'RE LIBERALS.

LIBERALS WHO ADVOCATE THINGS LIKE PROTECTIONISM, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND THE GREEN ECONOMY.

IN OTHER WORDS:

TO MAKE THIRD WORLD POVERTY HISTORY WE NEED TO MAKE THE LEFT HISTORY.

TAB IN FEBRUARY 2011:

According to the latest edition of Food Price Watch, the World Bank's food price index was up by 15% between October 2010 and January 2011, is 29% above its level a year earlier, and only 3% below its 2008 peak. 

Wheat prices have seen the most pronounced increases, doubling between June last year and January 2011, while maize prices were up 73%.

• THIS IS MOSTLY THE RESULT OF THE LEFT'S "GREEN ECONOMY" PROGRAMS: THEY RAISE THE PRICE OF ENERGY AND FERTILIZER AND TRANSPORTATION.
• IF WE WANT TO REDUCE POVERTY, THEN WE HAVE TO PUT THE KIBOSH ON ALL THE LEFT-WING POLICIES.

TAB IN JULY 2011:

The potential is huge, on the order of hundreds of billions of barrels of recoverable reserves,” said Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, a consulting firm, who is preparing a report on global shale oil.  

Similar fields in North Dakota and Texas are already beginning to gush oil. The techniques used to extract it include hydraulic fracturing, in which high-pressure fluids are used to break up shale rock to release the oil, and horizontal drilling, which allows drillers to tap thin layers of oil-filled shale that are sandwiched between layers of other rock. 

• PEAK OIL IS PART OF THE "GREEN ECONOMY" SCAM.
• DON'T BE DUPED BY CO2PHOBIA AND THE CALL FOR GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES FOR RENEWABLES AND THEIR DEMAND FOR CARBON TAXES. 
• CO2 IS HARMLESS AT WORST, AND PROBABLY BENEFICIAL.
• SO-CALLED FOSSIL FUELS - INCLUDING COAL - WHICH CAN BE BURNED CLEANLY AND ONLY EMIT SOME CO2 ARE PERFECTLY HEALTHY AND GOOD FOR PLANT LIFE AND AGRICULTURE. 
• LEFT-WING GOVERNMENT SCHEMES TO LIMIT THEIR USE HURTS THE POOR AND THE THIRD WORLD THE MOST. 
• THAT'S WHY I HAVE LONG ARGUED THAT TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY WE NEED TO MAKE THE LEFT HISTORY.

TAB IN SEPTEMBER 2011:

• N FACT, CO2PHOBIA HAS HURT THE THIRD WORLD AND INCREASED POVERTY BY SLOWING GLOBAL INDUSTRIALIZATION.
• THE QUICKEST AND SUREST WAY TO END THE GLOBAL RECESSION IS TO REPEAL ALL CO2PHOBIA LAWS AND FULLY EXPLOIT OUR NATURAL ENERGY RESOURCES.
• THIS WILL BRING DOWN THE COST OF ENERGY AND LOWER FOOD PRICES AND THE PRICES OF GOODS GLOBALLY.
• THE LONGER WE WAIT, THE DEEPER WILL BE THEE RECESSION.
• BOTTOM-LINE:
• IF WE REALLY WANT TO END POVERTY, THEN WE HAVE TO END CO2PHOBIA.

TAB IN MAY 2012:

SATURDAY, MAY 05, 2012ONLY THREE THINGS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PERSISTENT GLOBAL POVERTY
THE THREE THINGS ARE:

• SOCIALISM
• ISLAMISM
• CLIMATE ALARMISM

1. SOCIALISM PREVENTS PEOPLE FROM FREELY PRODUCING AND CONSUMING WHAT THEY WANT, PUNISHES THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE WHILE REWARDING SLOTH, AND PREDETERMINES OUTCOMES BY MAKING EVERYONE POORER. 

NO NATION HAS GOTTEN MORE PROSPEROUS BY REDISTRIBUTING ITS GDP OR CENTRALLY CONTROLLING GDP; THEY HAVE ALL GOTTEN POORER. EVERY SOCIALIST NATION THAT HAS TRANSITIONED TO FREER MARKETS HAS GOTTEN MORE PROSPEROUS. 

2. ISLAMISM IS A TOTALITARIAN PROGRAM WHICH SEEKS TO CENTRALLY CONTROL ALL BEHAVIOR AND LIMIT ALL INTELLECTUAL ENDEAVOR TO THOSE ACCEPTABLE TO SHARIA. AS A RESULT, NO ISLAMIC NATION HAS EVER INNOVATED ANYTHING; EVERY INNOVATION CREDITED BY DHIMMIS TO ISLAMIC CULTURE WERE IN FACT INNOVATIONS CREATED BY NON-MUSLIMS UNDER THEIR TYRANNICAL CONTROL. 

AS PEOPLE BECOME LESS FREE TO PRODUCE AND CONSUME WHAT THEY WANT, THEY PRODUCE AND CONSUME LESS, AND BECOME POORER AND LESS ABLE TO PRODUCE OR CONSUME ANYTHING. AFTER ALL, PROSPERITY IS A BY PRODUCT OF LIBERTY.

WITHOUT OIL - AND PERHAPS TOURISM, NO ISLAMIC NATION WOULD HAVE ANY GDP WORTH MENTIONING. 

NEARLY 3/4 OF A BILLION MUSLIMS LIVE UNDER GOVERNMENTS AND IN CULTURES WHICH ARE OVERTLY CONTROLLED BY ISLAM - AND AN EQUAL AMOUNT IS UNDER THREAT OF GLOBAL JIHAD.
UNTIL THEY NO LONGER LIVE UNDER OR ARE THREATENED BY THIS ANTI-LIBERTARIAN IDEOLOGY THEY WILL REMAIN IN ECONOMIC DISTRESS. 

3. CLIMATE ALARMISM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR INFLATING THE COST OF ALL ENERGY AND RETARDING THE EXPANSION OF INDUSTRIALIZATION TO THE THIRD WORLD. 

EXPENSIVE ENERGY INFLATES THE COST OF EVERYTHING ELSE, AND THAT HURTS POOR WORKING CLASS PEOPLE AND IMPOVERISHED THIRD WORLD PEOPLE THE MOST. 

CLIMATE ALARMISM - OR CO2PHOBIA - IS BASED ON THE FALSE IDEA THAT MAN-MADE CO2 IS CAUSING ALARMING GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE. 

THREE INDISPUTABLE FACTS PROVE THAT AGW AKA "MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE" IS A FALSE IDEA:
(A) THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THE CLIMATE CHANGE THAT HAS OCCURRED SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE INDUSTRIAL AGE THAT IS OUTSIDE THE PROVEN CLIMATE CHANGE THAT OCCURRED DURING THE PRE-INDUSTRIAL ERA OF OUR  HISTORICAL AGE OR THE PREHISTORICAL/GEOLOGICAL RECORD.
(B) CO2 HAS STEADILY INCREASED THE LAST 12 YEARS BUT GLOBAL TEMPERATURES HAVEN'T AND NEITHER HAS THE FREQUENCY OR INTENSITY OF STORMS OF ANY TYPE - TORNADOES, HURRICANES, TYPHOONS, OR BLIZZARDS.
(C) ALL DRAMATIC APPEARING CHANGES - FROM KILIMANJARO, TO THE HIMALAYAS, GREENLAND, THE ARCTIC AND THE ANTARCTIC - CAN BE MORE EASILY EXPLAINED BY APPEALING TO LOCAL INPUTS AND NOT GLOBAL ONES. 

THE CARBON-CONTROL SCHEMES DEVELOPED BY THE CLIMATE ALARMISTS HAVE NOT REDUCED MAN-MADE CO2 - NOT EVEN ONE-PART-PER-MILLION, BUT THEY HAVE IMPOVERISHED WORKING CLASS PEOPLE, SLOWED GLOBAL ECONOMIC GROWTH AND RETARDED INDUSTRIALIZATION OF THE THIRD WORLD WHILE ENRICHING MANY ALARMISTS AND THEIR CRONIES IN THE RULING CLASS. 

IMPOVERISHING PEOPLE AND DISTORTING MARKETS - WHILE BENEFITING ITS PROPONENTS - ARE THE ONLY THING THE CLIMATE ALARMISTS HAVE REALLY ACCOMPLISHED.
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO MAKE POVERTY HISTORY, THEN YOU SHOULD WORK TO MAKE SOCIALISM, ISLAMISM, AND CLIMATE ALARMISM HISTORY. 

UNTIL THESE THREE IDEOLOGIES ARE VANQUISHED POVERTY WILL PERSIST AND GROW.

TAB IN AUGUST 2012

The single most remediable economically repressive idea in the world today is CO2PHOBIA. 

Misogyny, islamism and leftism are as damaging, but they are more difficult to remediate. 

CO2phobia is the idea that too much man-made CO2 is toxic to the global ecology. 

This irrational fear has driven up the cost of ALL energy and expensive energy is a major factor in the current global recession - as it has been in all recent recessions...

Recessions closely follow bug run-ups and energy prices and these run-ups were usually caused by islamo-hegemony. 

Since the advent of KYOTO - as result of CO2phobia - the global economy has therefore been under attack of a double whammy.
That's why the global economy really  REALLY sucks. 

KYOTO AND 9/11, AND ITS AFTERMATH - (THE IRAQ WAR, THE IRANIAN NUKE PROGRAM, THE ARAB SPRING) - ARE WHAT'S DRIVEN ENERGY COSTS UP AND ECONOMIC GROWTH DOWN, DOWN, DOWN. 

And the irrational fear of CO2 is also preventing the Third World from becoming industrialized. Without industrialization the Third World will never have the economic engine they need to be able to create the prosperity they need to improve living standards and lifespans. 

... REPEAT: CO2phobia is the chief reason the world economy is in recession and the Third World is impoverished. 

If you want to make the recession and Third World poverty history, then you have to make CO2phobia history.

TAB IN MARCH 2013:

... THE CO2PHOBIC ALARMIST CAMP SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED. 

BECAUSE THEIR POLICIES HAVE RAISED THE COST OF ENERGY GLOBALLY... 

... AND REDUCED THE AMOUNT OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT GLOBALLY, 

THE CLIMATE CHANGE COMPLEX - 

COMPRISED OF LEFT-WING ACADEMICS, REGULATION-LOVING BUREAUCRATS AND LIBERAL POLITICIANS WHO FAVOR SOCIALISTIC POLICIES - 

IS THE SECOND GREATEST THREAT TO WESTERN CIVILIZATION - RIGHT AFTER GLOBAL JIHAD. 

THOUGH THEY PROBABLY THINK OF THEMSELVES AS DO-GOODERS 

AND THOUGH THEY PROBABLY SEE THEIR DELIBERATE LIES AS ULTIMATELY FORGIVABLE (BECAUSE THEY SERVE "THE COMMON GOOD"), 

THE CLIMATE CHANGE COMPLEX IS ACTUALLY A REGRESSIVE FORCE: 

THE POLICES OF THE CO2PHOBIC CLIMATE CHANGE COMPLEX HAVE PREVENTED THE THIRD WORLD FROM DEVELOPING INDUSTRIALLY AND THIS IS KEEPING POOR PEOPLE POOR. 

IF WE WANT TO END GLOBAL POVERTY, THEN WE HAVE TO DEMOLISH THE CLIMATE CHANGE COMPLEX.

YOU CAN SEE THIS HAS BEEN A TOPIC OF MAJOR CONCERN AT TAB.

IT IS WONDERFUL THAT AN ECONOMIST OF INTERNATIONAL RENOWN IS NOW ARGUING THE SAME BASIC AND IMPORTANT POINT.

ENDING CLIMATE ALARMISM IS IN THE INTEREST OF ALL HUMANITY - ESPECIALLY THE POOREST AMONG US.

BRUNEI'S SHARIA BEGINS TO DARKEN THE COUNTRY

The sultan of Brunei is now establishing his house of horrors:

The Sultan of Brunei, one of the world’s wealthiest rulers and a close ally of Britain, will this week oversee his country’s transition to a system of Islamic law with punishments that include flogging, the dismemberment of limbs and stoning to death.

The 67-year-old absolute monarch declared last year that he wanted to introduce a full sharia system in his oil-rich nation and warned critics who took to social media sites to complain that they could be prosecuted using the new laws.

The decision to introduce sharia and reintroduce the death penalty has been condemned by NGOs and legal rights campaigners, who say the new rules will breach international laws. It has also triggered alarm among some of Brunei’s non-Muslim communities, who will also be subject to some of the rulings.

The development could put pressure on Britain to rethink its close relationship with Brunei, a former colony. A British regiment based in the country – the last surviving UK regiment stationed in East Asia – is paid for entirely by the Sultan.

Let's hope the UK does reconsider, but alas, they might not.

BRITISH WOMAN IMPRISONED IN IRAN FOR INSULTING THE RELIGION OF PEACE

She appears to be a UK resident of Iranian background, and this could have something to do with the persecution she's facing:

A British woman has been locked up in Iran for five months after posting derogatory comments about the country's government on Facebook and fears she will be executed, her husband has said.

Concerns are growing for the welfare of Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht, 47, from Stockport, who has been charged with "insulting Islamic sanctities", a crime which can be punishable by death. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said it was "urgently" looking into her case. However, Britain currently has no embassy in Iran, making any negotiations more difficult.

Mrs Nobakht was in Iran visiting family in October last year when she was arrested by police as she arrived by plane in the south western city of Shiraz, according to an account given by her husband, Daryoush Taghipoor, to a family friend in Britain.

She made a big mistake going there, though Britain could already be on its way to becoming just as bad a place to live.

NEWSWEEK'S COVERAGE OF LEV TAHOR

Most of the news about the Islamized Haredi cult has come from Canadian sources to date. Now, Newsweek's published their own coverage, though it's not entirely honest:

An insular community of perhaps 250 people that was founded in Israel before moving to New York, then to Canada, Lev Tahor faces scrutiny as some of its members are under investigation by Canadian child welfare officials. The local affair has become an international incident after several families tried to flee with their children to Guatemala. One family of eight plus one adult are, for the moment at least, living in the vibrant Guatemalan tourist town of Panajachel, where they draw curious stares with their traditional garb. Other families were intercepted trying to leave Canada.

Traditional? I'm not sure that sums it up well. Backwards is more like it if we consider the niqab-style outfits they force the women to wear.

Lev Tahor, which is anti-Zionist (its members believe that the Torah instructs Jews to remain in exile until the coming of the Messiah), dismisses the current drama as the latest form of persecution they say has bedeviled the sect since it was formed in the 1980s.

Well at least the magazine is honest about their hostility to Israel's existence, stemming from a false claim about the Torah, without even providing any verses to back it up.

Uriel Goldman, a spokesperson for Lev Tahor, says Canadian authorities are bent on destroying the religious sect. “They hate the community,” he says, adding that Canada is buckling under political pressure from Israel to quash the group because of its anti-Zionist position.

There that disgusting man goes again, sobbing about hate, hate, hate, never willing to admit that's just what Lev Tahor is dumping on the children in their clutches.

They say they are puzzled by the scrutiny and deny the abuse allegations. “The maximum thing they found was a child with a bruise,” says Goldman. He says the group has acquiesced to Canada’s requirements for teaching mathematics and English to the children. However, he grew agitated when describing pressure to add evolution and sex education to their curriculum.

They found girls infected with fungus, is what, and that barbarian has the gall to deny it? Sick.

Lev Tahor is far from the mainstream of Judaism, says Menachem Friedman, a Jewish historian at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

In appearance, the group’s members are not dissimilar to other ultra-Orthodox Jews, according to Friedman: men dress entirely in black, their payot streaming from hats down below their shoulders, and spend much of the day immersed in prayer and learning the Torah. Women cover their bodies in shapeless, long black dresses. They often marry during their early teenage years, have many children and then tend exclusively to their families and household chores. The two genders rarely interact outside the family.

“It is very much outside the consensus,” Friedman says. “There are almost no other extreme religious groups that tolerate such behavior. It’s very isolated.”

Newsweek's description of the niqab-style dresses fails to acknowledge that, while a lot of Haredi clans insist on "modest" dress, niqabs and abayas are not common among Haredis. But then, I guess it figures they'd insult even Haredis with more decency than Lev Tahor will ever have.

A court there ruled on March 17 that the family entered the country legally on tourist visas and is allowed to stay for three months with the possibility of one extension for the same duration. Guatemalan authorities say they expect to hear from the Canadian embassy or to receive an international arrest warrant.

Even if the international appeals come in, the case would have to be reviewed by Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office. “Until that abuse is proven in Guatemala, Canada cannot proceed to take them back,” says Ana Ines Carpio, spokeswoman at the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This is not encouraging. Justice delayed is justice denied, and if Guatemala continues to let them remain - and flee later - they'll only be prolonging the suffering of the children, both physically and mentally.

JOHN KERRY CANCELS MIDEAST TRIP AFTER PLO RENEWS ITS UN BID

We'd be better off without Kerry visiting here anyway. Haaretz says:

American efforts to reach a "deal" to extend the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have reached a severe crisis Tuesday evening. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry canceled his planned visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah barely two hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed 15 international treaties the Palestinian state is interested in joining, and after earlier in the day Israel issued 700 new tenders for housing units in Jerusalem neighborhood across the Green Line.

Well it's our territory, so Abbas has got no business demanding it.

In a press conference in Brussels, Belgium Kerry attempted to play down the crisis, and noted that it is premature draw conclusions about the day's events.

"We urge both sides to show restraint," he said. Kerry added that none of the treaties signed by the Palestinian president has anything to do with UN agencies.

Sure, I'll bet it doesn't.

Israeli officials said Jerusalem estimates that Abbas' step is an attempt to exert last-minute pressure on Israel and the United States to improve the Palestinian side of the deal to extend the peace talks, which were due to end on April 29. The Prime Minister's Office has yet to comment on the matter.

Before signing the documents, Abbas had asked the members of the PLO leadership in attendance to vote yea or nay - and the vote was unanimously in favor. Abbas then signed the papers.

Abbas said the leadership made its decision after Israel did not commit to releasing a fourth round of prisoners.

Why should we commit to releasing savages, whom the PLO won't even admit were? Monsters they were, monsters they still are.

DAN SLOTT SCREWS UP AGAIN

I don't think this was meant to be an April Fools joke, but even if it were, it wouldn't be funny. He wrote:

If you're a blogger who thinks the MS. MARVEL comic is in any way disrespectful to 9/11 families, please check to see if you're an idiot.
— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) March 31, 2014

Sigh. Once again, he's apologizing for the product as though he were required to, and worse, he's insulting people he doesn't agree with. And he sure likes calling people he doesn't agree with "idiots", doesn't he. Truly disgusting. He hasn't even provided any explanation why it wouldn't be disrespectful to 9-11 families, or even to victims of honor murders.

Challenging question now: has he ever communicated with a]members of the 9-11 Families for a Safe & Strong America organization like Tim Sumner and Debra Burlingame, b]Israeli victims of terror and their relatives like Stephen Flatow, c]survivors of the bloodbath by Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, d]families of victims of the terrorist bombing in Boston and e]former Muslims like Brigitte Gabriel, Walid Shoebat and Bosch Fawstin? Has he ever asked them what they think?

Has ever even contributed to the funding of a memorial for victims of honor murders like Aqsa Parvez? Did he ever take part in protesting the mosque that almost got built at Ground Zero? Has he ever researched any of the verses in the Koran calling for jihad against infidels, like Sura 9:5, and also Sura 5:51, which demonizes Jews and Christians? Come to think of it, has he ever even offered somebody who went through such terrible incidents a hug and said "I love and care about you"? Not from what I can tell. And if he won't speak to them and ask what they all think, then I'm not sure why we're supposed to listen to Slott. He's already long proven himself as awful a speaker on politics as he is a writer. And for a man who says he's of Jewish background, he sure hasn't done much to prove he really honors it.

I would note that there's people out there shattered by the terrible experience of 9-11 who care about victims of Islamic honor murders. And there's former Muslims, survivors of Islamic upbringings out there, who care about victims of 9-11 too. What about Slott? Does he care about both groups?

Since we're on the subject, I should also note that Burlingame recently voiced offense at a movie called Non-stop, which did something hitherto thought impossible: it insulted 9-11 families. If survivors of 9-11 can comment on offensive movies, how long is it going to be before they start commenting on comic books with potentially offensive themes? How long before one shows up and voices distaste in a comic that whitewashes the very religion that encouraged violence against their beloved? Slott would do well to think about that, and not assume that because comics are all but under the radar, nobody will take notice. Just because it didn't happen today doesn't mean it won't happen tomorrow.

Once again, Slott's proven himself a major disappointment, by acting as apologist for other bad products in the comics medium, and using insulting language instead of civil discourse.

Update: here he goes again:

A simple truth: "Muslim" does NOT equal "terrorist." Any blogger preaching the opposite of that is on the wrong side of history.
— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) April 1, 2014

There may be moderate Muslims but there is no moderate Islam, and he's blatantly ignoring the history of the Caliphate. I suppose he also thinks "communist" doesn't equal "totalitarian belief system"? He's also letting everyone know he despises bloggers. This is why he'll never truly be a star.

NORTH KOREA GETS VERY AGGRESSIVE - EXACTLY AS I PREDICTED

ON MARCH 20 I PREDICTED IT:

THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 2014 

PUTIN'S CRIMEAN GAMBIT - A RESULT OF OBAMA'S RESET 

Putin took the opening that Obama created for him. 

At best, Obama created it as a naive act of goodwill. (In 2009, Obama canceled the tougher course Bush had put in place as a result of Putin's take-over of Ossetia and Abkhazia.) 

Obama entreaties to Iran will have the same effect. 

Obama's acts are nothing more than appeasement, and appeasement of our foes always results in adventurism by our foes. 

We can expect more gambits from Putin - and soon from Iran, and China and North Korea and Syria and Lebanon - until the USA and the West make some credible counter-moves - and that means doing something much more substantial than enacting sanctions of any kind, targeted or blanket.

ACTUALLY, I PREDICTED IT 6 YEARS AGO:

2007:

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2007 

HE MUST NOT BE TRUSTED. HE IS AN OLD KGB MAN AND THE KGB WERE RUTHLESS. 

ALSO: REMEMBER THAT THE KGB WAS VERY ADEPT AT  USING SURROGATES AND FOMENTING WARS WHICH HELPED THE USSR AND GAVE US GREAT TROUBLE: 

VIETNAM; ANGOLA; NICARAGUA; ETC.

THEY MAY EVEN NOW BE HELPING OSAMA AND IRAN AND ASSAD AND NASRALLAH FOR THE SAME REASONS.THE KGB TRAINED ARAFAT, TOO. AND CARLOS. AND ABBAS. 

I WOULD NOT PUT IT PASSED PUTIN. 

LIKE ASSAD - PUTIN ASSASSINATES HIS FOES WHEN HE FEELS IT'S NECESSARY. 

HE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR POWER. 

WE DESPERATELY NEED A NEW PRESIDENT WHO WILL COURAGEOUSLY COUNTER HIM - AND NOT BE OUT-MANEUVERED BY HIM:

SADLY - FOR THE ENTIRE FREE WORLD WE GOT THE WORST POSSIBLE PRESIDENT AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME.

FRANCE TAKING FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM TO SCHOOLS

France is trying a new tack in combatting jihadism, though there's still flaws in their approach that need to be avoided:

To stop the stream of French youths pursuing jihad in Syria, France is preparing to try to tackle terrorism before it starts, by involving schools, parents and local Muslim leaders, The Associated Press has learned.

This is part of a still-confidential plan prompted by fears that young radicals who travel to Syria could return home with the skills and motivation to carry out attacks - a Europe-wide concern. French officials say the plan will be made public soon.

The fears resurfaced last week when authorities revealed the discovery near Cannes of three soda cans packed with nails, bolts and explosives plus bomb-making instructions at the apartment of a 23-year-old man who had returned from Syria. Memories are still fresh of a radical Muslim Frenchman who gunned down children at a Toulouse Jewish school in 2012, after training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

To combat terrorism, France amassed one of the West's toughest legal arsenals following terror attacks in the 1990s, focusing on prosecuting proven extremists instead of trying to prevent radicalization.

While this is welcome and necessary, involving Muslim leaders is still very risky, because they could be deceptive and otherwise sabotage the effort to curb Islamofascism. They're going to have to be careful with that part if they want to lead a convincing effort to stop jihadists from spawning.

G. WILLOW WILSON HAS NO IDEA WHAT "DIFFERENT" MEANS

The propagandist writing the Muslim Ms. Marvel series was interviewed by the LA Times, along with one of the editors, and continues as expected with her dishonesty and taqqiya, along with the paper's writers too:

The new “Ms. Marvel” was a media sensation months before her first adventure was published: Kamala Khan, the girl behind the superhero’s mask, would be Marvel’s first Muslim character to star in her own title.

Umm, they just explained the situation - it's a media sensation, not an audience sensation.

But what shape her comic book series would take, and whether sales would match the hype, remained to be seen.

Oh, they matched the "hype" alright. It sold only 50,000 at best, though they're going out of their way to pretend it's a blockbuster on a movie level by doing a second printing, probably so they can clutter up the bargain bins. Must be common practice in modern comics publishing.

“People love to talk about new and different,” said “Ms. Marvel” writer G. Willow Wilson. “They don’t always love to buy and read new and different.”

They like new and different so long as it adheres to sanity and honesty, along with respect for civilized values. Something lacking in today's medium.

The fear in debuting such a risky character, series editor Sana Amanat said, is always: “If we do something like this, is it a gimmick?”

The answer is yes. Whitewashing the Religion of Peace, refusing to be open about the Koran/Hadith's contents, presenting a serious subject without transparency, that's what I call a gimmick meant to alienate the wider public, including members of 9-11 Families.

As “Ms. Marvel” No. 1 heads to a third printing and next month’s No. 3 approaches, early indications are that the teenage Kamala’s story has resonated with readers – and drawn new customers into comic stores. The debut issue, released in February, sold out its first printing and finished in the top 25 of more than 400 titles on Diamond Comic Distributors’ chart of sales to comic shops for the month. And Marvel said it was the publisher’s top digital comics seller last month, besting even issues of “All-New X-Men” and “Superior Spider-Man.”

I don't suppose they'd be willing to give us those exact sales numbers? I've said it before, and I'll say it again, anyone who takes a good look at those sales charts will laugh at how low they sell compared to movies and music tapes, and I'm skeptical the numbers were very high for Marvel's digital sales either if they didn't give exact figures.

At the center of the series’ story is 16-year-old Jersey City, N.J., Avengers fan fiction writer Kamala Khan, a daughter of Pakistani Muslim immigrants who loves the smell of bacon – “delicious, delicious infidel meat,” she jokingly calls it – but abides by the rules of her faith and doesn’t eat it. She is an American, but has a different background than her classmates and struggles to find a sense of belonging.

Ah, here we again have the reason not all Muslims are bound to be enthused. Even if she doesn't devour it, the line about merely checking its aroma is only bound to meet with dislike by the most hardcore Islamists. Simultaneously, using the term "infidel" is insulting because of the inferiority status it implies for non-Muslims.

...the writer notes that polymorphs in comics are most often shown as bad guys, a la the mutant villainess Mystique.

“It made sense that if were going to attack one set of stereotypes, we might as well take on them all,” she said.

Tell us about it. As I noted before, Metamorpho, Plastic Man, Mr. Fantastic and even Dr. Strange could count as polymorphs, so her argument falls totally flat.

Alongside “Captain Marvel,” “She-Hulk,” “Black Widow” and the upcoming “Elektra,” “Ms. Marvel” is part of a wave of Marvel superheroine titles that are born of a growing, enthusiastic female comics readership, one that fills room after bigger room at boisterous Women of Marvel panels. Their stories are more character exploration, less exploitation.

If they're going to flood their output with company-wide crossovers, that's disputable, and besides, not only did Marvel succeed in alienating much of the casual readership over the past decade, they alienated plenty of women too. Destroying the Spider-marriage and banishing Mary Jane Watson from prominent stardom was one of the biggest straws that broke the camel's back.

Hers and Alphona’s series was in for some expected heat upon announcement because of sometimes intense feelings about Islam in America, but it also was not going to be immune from criticism from Muslims.

Kamala’s family dynamics could have been a touchy issue, though each individual member is ultimately treated sympathetically. Her father complains that her very devout brother is using religion to avoid getting a job; her mother, too, worries that Aamir will be a “penniless mullah.” And there’s Kamala’s curiosity about that forbidden bacon.

“I think people, especially in the Muslim community, are rightly cautious any time you hear, ‘Oh, there’s going to be a Muslim character,’” said Wilson. “People’s guard immediately goes up because often what are portrayed in the media as ‘sympathetic’ characters end up rehashing the same stereotypes and racist baggage that all of the unsympathetic characters have reflected.”

Well at least they're honest about her writing's chances of turning off devout Muslims too. But not about using religion to avoid getting jobs, since in Europe - and in the USA too - there are Muslims who've lived off welfare, based on their religion's and its advocates' approval, and many have no problem with their children doing it either. Which makes Wilson's argument in the story a falsehood.

But, she said, she and Amanat were confident that “when the book actually came out and people saw how the characters were represented in the series, that they would be reassured. That’s pretty much what happened.”

Sigh. Another falsehood.

In addition to having Kamala figuring out origin-story stuff, Wilson said the first arc will set up a potential supervillain adversary. Amanat added that they have big plans for the next year of “Ms. Marvel,” including bringing Kamala more into the Marvel Universe story and exploring her being an Inhuman (the mist that transformed Kamala is from that superpowered race’s Terrigen Bomb, seen in Marvel’s “Infinity” event), plus guest appearances in the title.

Oh, so now they're going to tie her in with the Inhumans? Right, that's just what we all need. I think we're better off not knowing who the villain will be either. Wilson's sounded no differently here than in any of her other interviews.

EHUD OLMERT CONVICTED IN BRIBERY SCANDAL

At long last, the traitor politician who turned against not only Israel but also the city he'd once mayored has been convicted in the Holyland real estate scandal:

The Tel Aviv District Court on Monday morning convicted former prime minister Ehud Olmert, along with nine other former senior officials and businessmen, of taking and giving bribes in the development of a massive Jerusalem construction project promoted while Olmert was mayor of the city over a decade ago.

The ruling marks the first time a former Israeli prime minister has been convicted of bribery in what has been called one of the worst corruption scandals in the country’s history.

The verdict appeared to put an end to Olmert’s lingering hopes of making a comeback to national politics. Sentencing will take place at a later date, but legal experts say that the conviction will almost certainly entail years in prison for Olmert. [...]

According to the decision, the state’s witness gave Olmert’s debt-ridden brother Yossi Olmert post-dated checks for NIS 500,000 ($143,000) at Olmert’s behest. Dachner was representing real estate developer Hillel Charney, who was convicted on Monday of money laundering and bribing Olmert, his then-assistant — and future Jerusalem mayor — Uri Lupolianski, and others.

Dachner ”bought the services” of the mayor, who had no misgivings about breaking the law to help his cash-strapped brother, Rozen said. Olmert, he noted sardonically, considered the state’s witness a “magical treasure that stood at his disposal.”

Lupolianski, meanwhile, “was aware of the sizable ‘donations’ that were transferred and acted in contravention of proper standards,” he said.

“The broad canvas painted by the state’s witness revealed corrupt systems of government that had rotted over the years,” Rozen said in his decision. “Hundreds of thousands of shekels were transferred to elected and public officials.

“The state’s witness didn’t transfer the money out of the goodness of his heart, but rather with the intention that Olmert would help promote projects,” he added.

Entrepreneurs Avigdor Kelner and Meir Rabin were also convicted of giving bribes. Those convicted of taking bribes, in addition to Olmert and Lupolianski, were former Bank Hapoalim chairman Dan Dankner; attorney Uri Messer; former Jerusalem city engineer Uri Sheetrit; former deputy mayor and city councilman Eliezer Simhayof; Avraham Feiner, a former city councilman; and Olmert’s longtime aide and confidante, Shula Zaken.

Olmert is the first politician to once govern as prime minister who's been handed such a serious conviction, and, he looks to be the first in that role to go to prison. He's had it coming for a long time, after all the disaster he led to circa 2006, including his botched effort in the second Lebanon war. In recent years, he also sought to undermine the current government for not advancing the "peace" process. So this conviction is richly deserved.

Here's more:

The likely maximum sentence for bribery as it pertains to Olmert in the Holyland case is seven years. The maximum sentence for bribery has been changed to ten years in recent years, however, it was seven years at the time the crime was committed. Legal precedent suggests that the state will take into account the maximum sentence at the time the crime was committed.

Professor Emanuel Gross, a legal expert at Haifa University, said that he expected the state would seek a long prison sentence for Olmert, which is standard for those convicted of bribery.

Gross surmised that the state would seek a long sentence in relation to the maximum allowed for bribery given that this is one of the most serious crimes that someone has been convicted of while in public service. He said that the fact that Olmert took bribes while he was the mayor of Jerusalem and a minister - and later became prime minister - was likely to lead the state to seek a harsher sentence.

"You expect these people to exemplify integrity, and if, of all people, our leaders are corrupt, then the fitting punishment is several years in prison," Gross said.

Gross compared Olmert's case to those of Arye Deri and Shlomo Benizri, both ministers convicted of bribery who were sentenced to three and four years in prison respectively.

"[Olmert] is a much more senior figure. It is reasonable that the state would request punishment for him that is, at the least, equal, if not more severe."

They certainly should. Olmert is asking for it, and so too were Deri and Benizri. They're all a bunch of corrupt politicians.

THE LAST DAY — AND THE SITE IS DOWN

Figures!

From WTOP:

WASHINGTON -- On the last day to sign up for health care, the federal government's site HealthCare.gov is down.

At 5 a.m., the site said, "The system isn't available at the moment. We are currently performing maintenance. Please try again later."

"HealthCare.gov regularly nightly maintenance window has been extended."...

Another epic fail!

NYTIMES DISPLAYS ITS IMMORALITY, AGAIN

NYTIMES:

Remaking a Life, After Years in an Israeli Prison
Demonized as terrorists by Israelis and lionized as freedom fighters by Palestinians, prisoners like Muqdad Salah have become a flash point in the troubled peace talks.

THEY POSE THE ISSUE AS IF THE IDEA THAT THE PRISONER IS A TERRORIST IS SOMEHOW A MATTER OF DISPUTE BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT TERRORISM LIONIZE HIM.

THIS IS NOT AMORALITY; IT IS IMMORALITY.

IT IS EVIL.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY TYPICAL OF THE NYTIMES AND THE LEFT.