I HOPE THIS ONE LASTS A LONG LONG TIME...Former Vice President Cheney was released this morning from the Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute. As he continues his recovery at home he and his family express their gratitude for the tremendous care he has received from the medical staff at Inova Fairfax and at George Washington University Hospital. They also want to thank the many people who have reached out with letters and prayers and warm wishes.
Mr. Cheney, now 69, has had five heart attacks, the first coming when he was 37. His daughter, Liz Cheney, told “Fox News Sunday” last week that the former vice president was looking foward to taking hunting and fly-fishing trips.
The Times’s Lawrence K. Altman last month examined the kind of pump Mr. Cheney received, writing that it was “now being given to a small but growing number of people with heart failure so severe that they would most likely die within a few months without it.”
DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Cheney released from Inova Fairfax Heart and Vascular Institute.
CHAVEZ REJECTS NEW US AMBASADOR
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday went through with his threat to reject the diplomat nominated by President Barack Obama to be the US ambassador to Caracas.HUGO IS AS NUTTY AS HE IS MENDACIOUS AND EGOMANIACAL.
Chavez said he won’t accept Larry Palmer as envoy because he recently suggested morale is low in Venezuela’s military and raised concerns about Colombian rebels finding refuge in Venezuela.
The socialist leader had said on Thursday that he probably would refuse Palmer’s ambassadorship, which has not yet been confirmed by the US Senate.
“Obama, how do you expect me to accept this gentleman as ambassador?” Chavez said.
“He disqualified himself, he cannot come as ambassador,” he added.
As part of his Senate confirmation process, Palmer said last month that “morale is reported to be considerably low” in Venezuela’s military because of politically motivated appointments.
HOW STUPID IS OBAMA FOR NOMINATING SOMEONE CHAVEZ WON;T ACCEPT!?!?
Following attack on IDF, Congress halts military aid to Lebanon
Key members of US House block military assistance to LAF.Our president ought to be doing this.
The US Congress is blocking funding to the Lebanese military following its attack on Israeli soldiers last week amidst concerns it is cooperating with Hizbullah.
"This incident was tragic and entirely avoidable. US assistance is intended to enhance our safety and that of our allies,” Rep. Nita Lowey (D-New York) said Monday.
Lowey chairs the House appropriations subcommittee that handles foreign aid and needs to authorize such funds. The $100 million in Lebanese military assistance approved for 2010 has yet to be disbursed, giving Lowey a window to put a hold on the funding for the immediate future.
OPPOSITION TO GROUND ZERO MOSQUE SPREADS TO OTHER PARTS OF US
With the heated debates regarding the planned mosque near Ground Zero in New York making headlines in recent weeks, a New York Times report that was also published in the San Francisco Sentinel over the weekend serves as a reminder that not only the Big Apple has experienced confrontations due to a planned building of a mosque.It reminds me of the opposition to the mosque that was planned in Staten Island. The residents there were concerned about potential incitement to terrorism and violence, and it's the same even in other parts of the USA. All citizens should be concerned about the terrible impact Islam can have in their neighborhoods.
The report highlighted what has taken place in other locations across the United States in which mosques are proposed. For example, hundreds of protesters marched in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where a large Muslim center was proposed near a subdivision. Republican candidates have already denounced these plans, said the report.
[...] Diana Serafin, who opposes the Temecula mosque: “As a mother and a grandmother, I worry. I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.”
She added: “I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion. But Islam is not about a religion. It’s a political government, and it’s 100 percent against our Constitution.”
Yet that NYT article, as can be expected, is biased, and at Big Journalism, they study what's wrong with it.
Update: see also this disturbing topic at Big Peace about the imam Rauf's connections with 9-11 truthers and anti-semitic movements.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
WHAT IF NANCY DAVIS REAGAN HAD GONE TO SPAIN LIKE MICHELLE OBAMA?
GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS ARE WRONG AGAIN: AUGUST ARCTIC SEA ICE IS FINE
In April, I pointed out that PIOMAS forecasts for the summer didn’t make much sense.IOW: AGW = TFBS.
The computer model is predicting that 3+ year old ice (which is probably in excess of 10 feet thick) is going to melt by early August. That seems rather far fetched.
It is now early August. Let us see how they did. They expected most of the ice to be gone in the Beaufort Sea by now, and much of the remaining ice to be very thin.
The most recent NSIDC newsletter included this map, showing that the thick multi-year ice is still present in the Beaufort Sea. This is in stark contrast to the PIOMAS prediction of thin ice in that region.
This discrepancy will get worse through the remainder of the month. PIOMAS extent/thickness predictions are way off the mark, and their volume calculations are much too low.
Conclusion : There will probably be minimal ice loss during August. The minimum is likely to be the highest since 2006, and possibly higher than 2005. So far, my forecast of 5.5 million km² is looking very conservative. Ice extent is higher than I predicted for early August.
NORTH KOREA FLIPS THE BIRD AT OBAMA - AGAIN: SEIZES A SOUTH KOREAN FISHING BOAT
IT SENDS A BAD MESSAGE TO THE BAD GUYS: WE ARE WEAK - AND THAT INVITES THEM TO DO WORSE CRAP.
WE NEED TO STOP THIS.
WE CAN THIS NOVEMBER: VOTE GOP!
IT'S SIMPLE: VAUGHN WALKER AND TED OLSON ARE SIMPLY WRONG ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE AND EQUAL PROTECTION
I have to pass a test to get a license to do either.
MARRIAGE IS THE SAME - AND IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE SAME -
PROP 8 IN CALIFORNIA JUST ENSHRINES IT:
To get MARRIED you have to pass a test: you have to be a male and female couple.
NOT STRAIGHT OR GAY; SEXUAL ORIENTATION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!
It never has.
MANY gay men have married in the past and MANY lesbians have married in the past: they married women and men respectively.
There is not now nor has there ever been a sexual orientation test for a marriage license.
There is a gender test the couple must be one of each gender and only one of each gender.
And tests for marriage licenses are as legal and constitutional and practical as test for any license.
Gays and lesbians should be allowed to enter into contracts with each other.
But it isn't and cannot ever be marriage.
It can be a civil spousal arrangement. Obama supports this - and not "gay marriage".
REMINDER: Able Lincoln used to tell this story:
He asked his son, "If you call dog's tail his leg, then how many legs does a dog have?" His son answered "He has 5 legs ". Abe told him, "No. you are wrong. Just because ypu call a tail a leg, doesn't make it a leg."
Ditto marriage: Even if Gramscian progressives with a political agenda succeed to change a 3000 year old practice in order to call gay civil unions "marriage", they cannot ever make it so. Gays and lesbians who seek this are either being foolish dupes or they are seeking to diminsh the institution of marriage in order to advance their socialist agenda.
I say, let them have their own institution. They don't have the right to wreck one that's been around for 3000 years.
They are seeking state-enforced egalitarianization between marriage and civil unions - and this is tyranny. (See below.)
UPDATE: A FEW HOURS LATER AND HOT AIR AND FOX NOTICE.
FIREMEN AND BALLERINAS PROVE THAT SOCIAL ENGINEERING IS EVIL
Remember:
We are each extraordinary. Unique. Gifted.
We can each achieve extraordinary things - given the chance, and if we accept that there shall be failure along the way.
Any ideology or institution which seeks to deny a person this opportunity - even to help another person or "the common good" - is evil.
Social engineering is wrong. Evil. Affirmative action and quotas are no diffewrnt than putting weights & harnesses on the best ballerinas so that the lesser dancers don't feel bad and can get jobs.
IOW: Egalitarianism is another word for tyranny.
And don't think for a moment that social engineering based on evil egalitarianism ISN'T still happening:
City Barred From Hiring New FirefightersTHIS JUDGE - OF COURSE A LIBERAL AND A CLINTON APPOINTEE- IS DOING A BAD THING FOR ALL NEW YORKERS.By A. G. SULZBERGERThe federal judge overseeing a discrimination lawsuit against the city’s Fire Department ruled on Wednesday that the hiring test being used by the department was unfair to minority applicants and issued an injunction that will prevent the city from offering positions to 300 applicants who had already taken the exam.
Two previous hiring tests have been ruled discriminatory by the judge, who has accused the city of using obstructionist tactics to avoid court-ordered reforms aimed at increasing the number of black and Hispanic firefighters in a department that has long been disproportionately white.
But the decision on Wednesday was the first time in the case that the city has been specifically restricted from hiring new firefighters. The city had planned to makes it job offers on Thursday.
The judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis of United States District Court in Brooklyn, found that the city did not provide evidence that the current test was effective in selecting the best qualified applicants. “What the examination does do is screen and rank applicants in a manner that disproportionately excludes black and Hispanic applicants,” he wrote. “As a result, hundreds of minority applicants are being denied the opportunity to serve as New York firefighters, for no legitimate or justifiable reason.”
Judge Garaufis said he would schedule a hearing as soon as possible to consider alternative measures, like allowing the city to choose new firefighters from a list of applicants who passed the current test by selecting from among those who achieved a passing score rather than in order of scores. Another option would be maintaining the injunction until the city completed a new test it was ordered to draft under court supervision.
The ruling is another significant setback for the city stemming from a lawsuit filed in 2007 by the Justice Department on behalf of the Vulcan Society, an organization of black firefighters. In January Judge Garaufis ruled that the city had intentionally discriminated by using two hiring exams from 1999 to 2007 that put minority candidates at a disadvantage. Calling the practice a “persistent stain on the Fire Department’s record,” Judge Garaufis ordered the city to give 300 minority applicants priority hiring status and retroactive seniority and to financial compensate 7,400 more who had taken the test, payments that the Justice Department estimates will total $63.5 million.
The city, which hired a firefighter class off the current exam in 2008, had pressed to be allowed to hire the new firefighters in the coming weeks, arguing that an understaffed fire department represented a risk to public safety because it would require current firefighters to work more overtime.
“We are extremely disappointed in today’s decision, and are evaluating all legal options,” said Georgia Pestana, a city lawyer. “If the Fire Department is not allowed to hire a new class — as the judge has now ruled — the city will have to make up for the understaffing by paying overtime at a cost of almost $2 million per month.”
THIS JUDGE IS MAKING US LESS SAFE AND LESS FREE.
- THE ONLY CLASS WARFARE THAT IS GOOD IS THE WAR BETWEEN THE POLITICAL ELITES AND THE REST OF US WHO WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE.
- WE CAN STOP 2081 FROM HAPPENING BY VOTING GOP THIS NOVEMBER.
2081 Film Clip from 2081 on Vimeo
HIZABALLH SAYS IT HAS PROOF THAT THE JOOOOOOZE ASSASSINATED HARIRI
Hizbullah will reveal evidence implicating Israel in the car bombing that killed Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 on Monday, Ma'an News Agency reported Sunday.YES: THE JEWS KILLED HARIRI AND... THERE WAS NO HOLOCAUST AND NO TEMPLE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT, AND THE MUSLIMS INVENTED EVERYTHING...
Rafiq Hariri was the father of current Lebanese Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri, who was killed alongside twenty others in Beirut. It is widely accepted that the former prime minister was the target of assassins.
IMMORAL.
SATANIC.
LUNATIC.
AND
MILITARISTIC.
AND ANOTHER TWO THINGS:
- WTF IS RAFIQ HARARI DOING WITH NASRALLAH?!?!?
- AND WTF IS HIZBALLAH - (A JIHADO-TERRORIST GROUIP WHICH IS AN AGENT OF GLOBAL JIHAD UNDER THE DIRECTION OF IRAN AND SYRIA, A GROUP WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY COMMITTED TO POLICIES DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED TO A LEBANON THAT IS DEMOCRATIC AND PLURALISTIC) - DOING IN THE LEBANESE GOVERNMENT!?!?
MUSLIM WHO LOST MOTHER ON 9/11 OPPOSES GROUND ZERO MOSQUE
AMEN.On the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, I watched as terrorists slammed United Flight 175 into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, 18 minutes after their accomplices on another hijacked plane hit the North Tower. My mother was on the flight. I witnessed her murder on live television. I still cannot fully comprehend those images. In that moment, I died as well. I carry a hole in my heart that will never be filled.
From the first memorial ceremonies I attended at Ground Zero, I have always been moved by the site; it means something to be close to where my mother may be buried, it brings some peace. That is why the prospect of a mosque near Ground Zero -- or a church or a synagogue or any religious or nationalistic monument or symbol -- troubles me.
The Iranian revolution compelled my family to flee to America when I was 12 years old. Yet, just over two decades later, the militant version of our faith caught up with us on a September morning. I still identify as a Muslim. When you are born into a Muslim family, there is no way around it, no choices available: You are Muslim. I am not ashamed of my faith, but I am ashamed of what is done in its name....
... On the day I left Ground Zero shortly after the tragedy, I felt that I was abandoning my mother. It was like being forced to leave the bedside of a loved one who is dying, knowing you will never see her again. But I felt the love and respect of all those around me there, and it reassured me that she was being left in good hands. Since I cannot visit New York as often as I would like, I at least want to know that my mother can rest in peace.
I do not like harboring resentment or anger, but I do not want the death of my mother -- my best friend, my hero, my strength, my love -- to become even more politicized than it already is. To the supporters of this new Islamic cultural center, I must ask: Build your ideological monument somewhere else, far from my mother's grave, and let her rest.
Round up here at Memeorandum.
RE: MICHELLE'S LUXURIOUS TRIP TO SPAIN, EVEN DOWD PILES ON:
The inimitable columnist Mary McGrory once said that if a first lady simply made her husband toast, that was enough, given how hard his job was.
And because his predecessor mucked things up so royally, President Obama’s job is ridiculously hard. But at moments when you think Michelle might make her husband toast, or better yet a martini, she’s often off on a girls’ trip.
When health care passed after a difficult year and the president celebrated with his staff on the Truman Balcony, the first lady was with her daughters on Broadway to see “Memphis.”
When the BP oil spill stained the White House, making the president seem so impotent that he had to make his first national address from the Oval Office, the first lady was playing with her mother and daughters in Los Angeles, staying at the Beverly Wilshire. She was taking in a Lakers game the night of his address.
MICHELLE IS MORE LIKE MRS. ARAFAT OR MRS. BREZHNEV THAN MRS. BUSH.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
RAM IT IN - ER UM I MEAN RAMADAN 2010...
Ramadan in 2010 will start on Wednesday, the 11th of August and will continue for 30 days until Thursday, the 9th of September.
FOR MUSLIMS, THE YEAR IS 1431.
THEY BEHAVE THAT WAY, TOO.
(THE JPEG ON THE RIGHT DEPICTS A MASSACRE OF CHRISTIANS BY MUSLIMS IN THE 15TH CENTURY.)
INCREDIBLE IMAGE OF SPACE
I THINK WE SHOULD CALL IT ... HEAVEN:
click to enlarge
ASIDE:
- DOES HITCHENS THINK THIS VAST ARRAY OF IMMENSE INTENSE GALACTIC ACTIVITY WILL ONE DAY EVENTUALLY GIVE RISE TO 1,000,000,000 MONKEYS TYPING THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE AT RANDOM?
- OR DOES HE THINK IT WILL DEVOLVE INTO A GOLD POCKET-WATCH?
WHAT REAL HOPE REALLY LOOKED LIKE
HOW SHOULD WE RETALIATE AGAINST THE JIHADIST'S ATTACK ON THE JAPANESE OIL TANKER - AND HOW CAN WE PREVENT FUTURE ATTACKS?
BBC: THE JAPANESE TANKER WAS HIT BY THE JIHADISTS.
THEY'RE THREATENING THE FLOW OF OIL OUT OF THE PERSIAN GULF.
EVEN CARTER SAW AN OPEN PERSIAN GULF AS A VITAL INTEREST. (MORE HERE.)
HOW SHOULD WE RETALIATE AGAINST THE JIHADIST'S ATTACK ON THE JAPANESE OIL TANKER - AND HOW CAN WE PREVENT FUTURE ATTACKS?
NOT BY CONTINUING TO DO WHAT WE'VE DONE TO DATE.
WE NEED TO CRANK IT UP A FEW NOTCHES - ON ALL FRONTS:
- WE NEED TO USE BIGGER BADDER WEAPONRY- EVEN A FEW NUKES AGAINST THE ENTRENCHED TALIBAN
- AND WE NEED TO EXERT GREATER DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS
- AND MORE SANCTIONS AGAINST MORE MUSLIM NATIONS LIKE PAKISTAN AND SAUDI ARABIA.
- SLOWLY BUT SURELY THE ENEMY IS FORCING US TO USE UP OUR PRECIOUS RESOURCES AND THEY'RE SLOWLY WEAKENING OUR ECONOMIES.
- AND SOON THEY WILL GET WMD'S - EVEN NUKES.
- THEN ALL BETS ARE OFF.
THE LONGER WE WAIT THE HIGHER THE COSTS OF THE FINAL, INEVITABLE CONFLICT.
THE HEIGHT OF IDIOTIC APPEASEMENT:l IRAN SANCTIONS ARE WORKING, SO OBAMA AND HILLARY WANT TO OFFER IRAN QAN OLIVE BRANCH!?!?
... an orchestrated series of global sanctions has brought more economic pain for than its government anticipated, are making a renewed appeal to Iranian leaders to reopen negotiations on the country’s nuclear program that collapsed last year.The administration’s renewed opening to Iran comes as evidence mounts that gasoline shipments to the country have slowed drastically, that at least some banks, from Europe to Pakistan, have cut off dealings with the country for fear that they will lose access to the United States financial system and that Iranian officials are unable to get foreign investment in a series of multibillion-dollar and gas projects.
Much of that evidence has been put forward by local media in the Persian Gulf region and is difficult to confirm, although officials with the say they also believe that Iran is having trouble getting investment for oil and gas projects.
Mrs. Clinton argued that “the scope and reach” of an orchestrated set of sanctions adopted over the past two months in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia “have had real bite,” and have given the West new leverage. Iran’s leadership, she argued, has “undertaken dramatic diplomatic and commercial maneuvers to prevent the sanctions from being imposed on them, but they are falling short, much to their surprise.”
But both Mrs. Clinton, in a 20-minute telephone conversation on Friday, and Mr. Obama, in an unusual assessment to editorial writers and columnists at the White House last week, acknowledged that Iranian leaders might be unwilling to give up the nuclear program — a huge source of national pride — despite the escalating cost.
“It may be that their ideological commitment to is such that they’re not making a simple cost-benefit analysis on this issue,” Mr. Obama told editorial writers and columnists in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wednesday. One of Mr. Obama’s advisers said that while Iran had indicated a willingness to start some kind of talks in September, its reaction to the sanctions “could be to speed up the nuclear program.”
Iran says that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes, a claim that many Western countries doubt.
Mr. Obama’s and Mrs. Clinton’s back-to-back public statements appeared part of an effort to signal to the Iranian people that the sanctions would only worsen if the Iranian government did not find what Mrs. Clinton called “a pathway” to negotiations. Mr. Obama went further, telling the columnists that he wanted “to put before the Iranians a clear set of steps that we would consider sufficient to show that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons.” He added, “They should know what they can say yes to.”
WOULD FDR OR TRUMAN LOOKED FOR SOMETHING FOR HITLER "TO SAY YES TO" - SHORT OF AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!?!?
NO EFFIN' WAY!
WE OUGHT TO BE RUTHLESSLY PURSUING REGIME CHANGE, AND SIGNALING TO THE IRANIAN PEOPLE THAT IF THEY OVERTHROW THEIR JIHADIST OVERLORDS WE WILL BE THERE TO HELP THEM REBUILD IRAN AS A DEMOCRATIC, PLURALISTIC AND NON-THREATENING NATION, AND AN ALLY OF THE WEST - AS IT ONCE WAS.
INSTEAD, OBAMA SEEKS NEGOTIATIONS WITH AHMADINEJAD.
IDIOT.
PROOF THAT THE LEBANESE "GOVERNMENT" IS EITHER HOSTAGE TO IRAN/HIZBALLAH OR A CO-CONSPIRATOR
Lebanese president vows to arm military with advanced weaponryPresident Suleiman lauds army's performance during Tuesday's border clashes with Israel, says 'it's necessary to resist Israeli aggression.'
- HIZBALLAH EVEN PLANNED THIS ATTACK - AND EVEN HAD HIZBALLAH "JOURNALISTS" ON SIGHT BEFORE THE ATTACK TO FACILITATE THE PRODUCTION OF PROPAGANDA.
- AND NOW WE HAVE THE LEBANESE PRESIDENT TRYING TO EXPLOIT THIS EVENT TO ESCALATE TENSIONS - TENSIONS THAT ONLY BENEFIT IRAN.
AND THE SOONER WE DO IT THE BETTER.
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY AND USING ALL NECESSARY FORCE.
NYTimes: Taliban Kill 10 on Medical Aid Mission in Afghanistan
As many as six Americans and two other foreigners were shot to death during an aid expedition to a remote area in the north.And the left thinks our response to this should be RETREAT!?!?!?
No effin' way. The scum that did this deserve to die, and we need to wipe them pout for the globe's safety-sake: jihado-scum that do this would do anything: As Tony Blair said in 2001: the jihadIsts are only limited by their means.
Our response should be a coupla NUKES dropped wherever the Taliban rule - whether inside Afghanistan or Pakistan's lawless regions.
We shoulda done this in November of 2001. FDR and Truman woulda.
AND THIS JIHADO-SCUM AIN'T JUST "PROSELYTIZING" IN SOUTH ASIA, (OF COURSE):
Westerners In Saudi Face Attack Threat: U.S. Embassy
The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia said Westerners face possible attack from unidentified extremists in the central province of al-Qassim, in the first warning of its kind this year."We have received credible information that an unidentified extremist (s) in Saudi Arabia may be planning to attack Westerners working and living in al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia," the embassy said in a statement posted on its website.
"The timing and method of potential attacks are currently unknown," said the statement dated August 4, urging U.S. citizens to "exercise prudence and enhanced security awareness at all times."
WHEREVER THERE IS ISLAM THERE IS JIHADO-TERROR. ALWAYS HAS BEEN; ALWAYS WILL BE.
JIHADO-TERROR WAS MOHAMED'S M.O. & SOP.
NOTHING HAS CHANGED.