Thursday, September 12, 2013

And the news flood continues...


The news just keeps rolling in. Syria at the end, as per usual lately. ~Bob

Murder in Chicago
Local TV news this morning reported that out of 306 murders in Chicago this year, 5 of the victims were white, 55 were Hispanic, and 246 were black. Do you know the name of even one of these black victims? You would if the killer had been identified as white—or a “white Hispanic.” It isn’t white neighborhoods where a black teen in a hoodie is not safe at night. This is not due to race, which means nothing, but to culture, which progressive policies have destroyed in our cities along with the black family and traditional values. ~Bob.

Today’s “Feel Good” News: Omar Hammami Dead: American Jihadi Killed In Somalia, Reports Say
Excerpt: A rapping jihadi from Alabama who ascended the ranks of Somalia's al-Qaida-linked extremist rebels and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list with a $5 million reward for his capture was killed Thursday in an ambush ordered by the rebels' leader, the militants said.

U.S. Population Falls to Dangerous Levels Below Replacement Rate
Excerpt: The fertility rate in the United States fell again to another record low in 2012, thanks in part to the recession that is making it so couples are more reticent to consider having children to adding to their family. While abortion contributes to destroy more than one million unborn children on an annual basis, new figures from the CDC show the American population is at dangerously low levels — so low that the U.S. birth rate is below the replacement rate needed to sustain the population. 

Excerpt: We are reaching a tipping point: A new analysis of federal health data shows that Medicaid paid for nearly half of all births in the United States in 2010, a rate that continues to increase.

On the advice of the Russians, Miley Cyrus is to be put under the control of the United Nations.

Obamacare Medical Device Tax Causes One Company to Lay Off Over 1,000 People
How’s that pivot to jobs going? ~Bob.

Marianne Faithfull: It wasn't just Mick Jagger who couldn't get satisfaction: Marianne Faithfull's unhappy memories of sex in the Sixties speak for many women of that flower power era. By Angela Newstatter 
Excerpt: Far from exulting in love-making with King Mick, Faithfull, 66, says now – in an episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are? to be shown next week – that she could not tolerate sex without the support of alcohol and drugs, and that it was not until she reached her fifties that she was able to enjoy love-making, conscious of what she was doing. What irony that the song that shot her to fame as a 17-year-old in 1964 was As Tears Go By. Faithfull attributes her “horror of men” to the fact that at the end of the Second World War both her Austrian mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, and her grandmother were raped by Red Army soldiers during the liberation of Vienna.

Budget Experts: Social Security Checks will be Delayed: U.S. at risk of default by Oct. 18. By Erik Wasson
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/321281-budget-experts-us-at-risk-of-default-starting-oct-18#ixzz2ed1DrJuJ
Excerpt: Social Security checks set for Nov. 1 could be delayed until Nov. 13, leaving seniors without money for half a month. The Bipartisan Policy Center said that under this option, the delays would become longer and longer until at some point payments would have to be missed.

VIDEO: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on 9/11 and Obama. By Wanda Carruthers
Excerpt: The president leads by following. He didn't have anybody to follow. Now he's following Putin.'

Disgusting: AT&T use anniversary of 911 to try and sell us phones. By Willard Foxton
Excerpt: Yes, AT&T were attempting to hock phones using the anniversary of September 11 as a hook – a spectacularly ill-judged "advermemorial", as it's been called. Surely someone in a meeting must have said "Doesn't this look… incredibly crass? Aren't we trying to sell phones on 3,000 corpses?"

Tech jargon alert: here's some 'disruptive' startup 'content' that I 'crowdsourced' By Mic Wright
Excerpt: Listening to a marketing person – or marketeer as they like to style themselves – talking about what they plan to do with your content is enough to make most writers retreat to a hermitage. The dream for the startup kids,though, is to crowdsource some content and “monetise” it. 

UK: Blame bad state education--not good private schools--for social apartheid. By Harry Mount
Excerpt: The way to improve social segregation is not to bash private schools, but to make state schools better. That is exactly what was happening in the 1960s before various governments – again of both persuasions – conspired to get rid of the vast majority of grammar schools. 

Well done, Australia! The lessons from Tony Abbott's victory in Oz: Conservatives, stop drifting to the soggy center. By Douglas Carswell
Excerpt: A centre-Right party manages to win a landslide election by standing to cut immigration, lower taxes, end the obsession with CO2 emissions and reduce foreign aid. Who would have thought it, eh? 

Poll: Republicans embracing libertarian priorities. By James S Hohmann
Excerpt: Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway, who ran the poll, said she’s seeing a spike in voters who feel the government is too expensive, invasive and expansive. “The perfect storm is being created between the NSA, the IRS, the implementation of Obamacare and now Syria,” she said.

VIDEO: "Allah is a lie!""Mohammed is a Pedophile!""I want the Constitution back!": "Million Muslim March" met with counter-protest. By Madaleine Morgenstern
Excerpt: “Why is there so much security at the airport? Thank a Muslim. Why are there so many wars in the Middle East? Thank a Muslim,” one counter-protester shouted into a bullhorn. “Muhammad is a pedophile!”

"Million Muslim March" vastly outnumbered by Christians and bikers. By Meredith Somers
Excerpt: A few dozen demonstrators attending a rally on the Mall once billed as the Million Muslim March were vastly outnumbered Wednesday by a Christian group objecting to their event and a counterprotest consisting of motorcycle riders honoring Sept. 11 victims.

New Bill Proposes To Block Food Stamp Users From Buying Junk Food. By Heather Ginsberg
Excerpt: Yesterday the Republican lawmaker {Phil Roe of Tennessee] proposed new legislation that would require people using federal food stamps to buy only healthy food. According toThe Hill: The Healthy Food Choices Act, H.R. 3073, reflects a long-standing criticism that the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allows people to buy billions of dollars worth of junk food. 'A 2012 study found that food stamps enable about $2 billion worth of junk food purchases each year, and that more than half of all SNAP benefits are used to buy sugary drinks.' [This is going to sound mad: When we were at the ashram in the Seventies, we were told that what we ate could affect our thoughts. At first, I thought that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard. But I began to watch my thoughts and I realized it was true. I hardly ever drink Coke or other fizzy drinks, but about ten years ago, I realized that drinking Coke made me depressed (and I am not normally depressed). It even made me succumb to what my doctor called 'suicidal ideation'. Suicidal ideation is when you find yourself thinking about suicidal things, she said, even though you've got no intention of committing suicide and don't even know why you are thinking these things. I often wonder how much of the bad behaviour we have to put up with today, and even the teenage suicides, are about drinking Coke and other fizzy drinks. Kate]

Detroit Power Outage Due to Public Lighting "System Overload" http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/09/11/power-outage-in-downtown-detroit-2/
Excerpt: Presiding judge Kenneth King said continuing problems with Detroit Public Lighting are a huge security concern. “That’s a whole different dimension in very scary proposition,” King said. 

Top Sunni Clerics Issue Fatwa Banning Photography as 'Un-Islamic'
Excerpt: Because everything is “un-Islamic.” NEW DELHI (PTI)— India’s leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom has issued a fatwa, saying “photography is unlawful and a sin”, even though Saudi Arabia allows photographers inside the holy city of Mecca and live telecast of ‘namaz’ is beamed on Islamic channels across the world.

VIDEO: Liberal Princeton Professor Cornel West Shows Up as One of the 21 People at the "Million Muslim March; Says 9/11 Possibly an Inside Job.
Excerpt: Kinda funny that only 21 people showed up for the “Million Muslim March” and one of them was Cornel West.

9/11: America's Unfinished Business. By Michelle Malkin
Excerpt: Before we head to Syria to avenge the mass murder of their kids, how about we finish avenging ours? When I say "finish," of course I really mean "start." A dozen years after the 9/11 attacks, the trials against the jihadist plotters who incinerated pregnant women, firefighters, grandparents, newlyweds, toddlers and schoolkids on their first-ever plane rides have yet to begin.

Facebook 'Likes' say it all: Let's Roll: Motorcyclists Prove Patriotism over Muslim March. By Sarah Jean Seman
Excerpt: Facebook pages for the two events might have given Americans a bit of foresight into the turnout of this event. The MAMAF page [Million Muslim March] had 291 "Likes" as of 2:40 p.m. on Wednesday, while the 2 Millions Bikers to DC is currently at 201,000 and growing. We can all rest assured knowing at least America still knows where its allegiance lies.

Allen West on illegals: "Not everyone is coming here to mow our grass, fix our roofs and babysit out children." By Kelsey Osterman
Excerpt: [West said,] “Hezbollah is working with Mexican drug cartels."Recently, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) claimed that while some of the young people brought here by their parents illegally are successful students, others are drug runners. “For every one who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds, and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” King told Newsmax back in July.

Allen West chews into Obama administration for seeking military response in Syria while withholding it in Benghazi. By Kelsey Osterman
Excerpt: “I find it very hypocritical that at this moment in time, the American people are being told that they have a moral obligation to go into Syria because of the chemical gas attacks, but yet I never heard the same type of indignation coming from the President, nor this administration, when our national security interests were attacked,” he said. “Because an American consulate is sovereign American territory.”

Sources: US weapons stolen in Libya raids, fueling Special Forces pull-ou. By Adam Housley
Excerpt: Highly sensitive U.S. military equipment stored in Libya was stolen over the summer by groups likely aligned and working with terrorist organizations, State Department sources told Fox News -- in raids that contributed to the decision to pull Special Forces personnel from the country. 

British shocked at NHS hospital death rates — among the world’s worst and (gasp) far inferior to U.S. hospitals
Excerpt: Patients in NHS hospitals have death rates 45 percent higher than patients in U.S. hospitals (we were the best-performing by this measure out of the seven nations compared). Patients in NHS hospitals are also five times more likely to die from pneumonia than American hospital patients.

Excerpt: … our best fighting generals have been sacked, on one pretense or another, since the start of combat operations in the Af-Pak theater. … we have active hostiles serving openly in our Armed Forces. … we have a national security state that spies on us, reads our emails, taps our telephone calls, invades our computers, and data-mines our activities for “suspicious” behavior, in the name of “protecting” us. … we no longer have a functioning Fourth Amendment.

Excerpt: As lawmakers sent out their traditional 9/11 statements to mark the 12th year since the attacks on New York and Washington, some Republicans also somberly — and with frustration — remembered the attack on the Benghazi consulate a year ago. (Stonewalled on 9/11. It’s what they do. Look where it has gotten US. –Barb)

Billions to Spend: How a $5.7 billion program to rebuild L.A. community colleges went astray.
Excerpt: The trustees rely largely on contractors, college employees and unions to fund their election campaigns. Many political donors received contracts in the construction program. The searchable database shows the sources of political money and which donors have contracts. (Oh, look at this. All about my alma mater of eight terms Los Angeles City College et al. I could have told them all about this and more. They were throwing up one huge building after the next. The teachers didn't have any chalk. You couldn't hear yourself think, never mind speak, in our Spanish 3 class because of the bulldozers. Our lovely, decent Professor Jose Morin shouted out to us, "I can't ask them to stop! They could sue!" Kate.)

One of the Biggest Muslim Orgs in North America Recommends Fighting Crime by Chopping Off Hands. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: What could it hurt? We keep being told that Sharia Law is so great. Why not give it a whirl followed by a prolonged scream and lots of bleeding?

Good article: Since Benghazi attack, Libya worse off, families in lurch. By Mathieu Galtier and Jabeen Bhatti , USA Today
Excerpt: In the United States, the families of those killed a year ago at the consulate say the Obama administration has yet to tell them what really happened, and why it is that none of the killers has been captured or killed. … President Obama and then-secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton initially blamed the attacks on a spontaneous protest against a U.S.-made anti-Islam video despite a CIA report that discounted that explanation. … The White House has said it has provided all the information it can on the attack, and Obama alluded to Benghazi as a "phony scandal." (Benghazi is one of those issues where we on the right look at Americans on the other side of the partisan divide and wonder whether we're from the same planet. Don't they care that our ambassador and his team were sent to a facility with ludicrously insufficient security? Don't they care to know whether something could have been done that night to save those men, and if so, why a rescue mission wasn't launched? Look at a map. This is a Libyan city on a coast, facing the Mediterranean, south of Europe and all of our NATO allies. Less than a year earlier, we had been running a major multinational combat operation right there: Don't they care that the explanation offered by our government was false? These folks who screamed "Bush Lied, People Died" from 2003 to 2008 now shrug about lies about how and why Americans were killed. Don't they care that despite Obama's pledge that "justice will be done," no one has been caught, jailed, or executed for their role in the attack? -- Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt. No, they don’t care. They care only about protecting Obama and his agenda. ~Bob.)

Don't Let THEM Detroit Virginia
Pass to any VA voters you know. ~Bob

Excerpt: 1. Phony birth control arguments have limits: Democrats have long relied on the heretofore effective lie that Republicans want to steal the pill right out of women’s purses. In the recall races, Democrats dug right back into that tired, old playbook, running endless streams of ads accusing the Republican candidates of wanting to steal the pill and one ad (below) that claimed they “would allow police to investigate miscarriages.”

On 9/11 — A Look Back, a Look Forward: Then as now, the Arab world’s self-induced pathologies cannot be cured by American self-doubt. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: September 11, 2001, was not just a tragedy, but rather a willful act of war by radical Islamists who hate Western civilization and the American version of it in particular. They achieved, by their cunning and our laxity, a horrendous loss of American life. Indeed, they did something that no enemy had succeeded at since the War of 1812: bringing the war home to the U.S. and inflicting human, material, and economic damage on a colossal scale.

Excerpt: No president in modern American history has bashed the oil and gas industry more than Barack Obama. And none has benefited from that industry more.

You won’t believe this video of CUNY students heckling Professor David Petraeus
Excerpt: x-CIA director David Petraeus — now an adjunct professor at the City University of New York — had a rough first day of class: a student mob stalked him, hurling insults like “scumbag” and “murderer.”

The Mysterious and Alarming Rise of Single Parenthood in America: Single parents have more than tripled as a share of American households since 1960. It's a huge problem without an easy explanation. Aparna Mathur, Hao Fu, And Peter Hansen
Excerpt: In fact, single moms account for precisely one-quarter of U.S. households. Single dads make up another 6 percent. … According to Pew, married mothers earned a median family income of $80,000 in 2011, almost four times more than families led by a single mom. (Not mysterious at all. Starting in the 1960s, we destroyed the culture, family values and taboos against getting pregnant when not married. Poverty and crime is the result. ~Bob.)

A very funny satire on Obama from Second City

California: Bipolar state of mania. By Victor Davis Hanson
Excerpt: The "wall of debt" is not $35 billion. According to the State Budget Crisis Task Force report that was issued in January, California debt ranges from a minimum of $167 billion to a staggering $335 billion. To close the budget deficit, Brown cut expenses, but he also just raised already-high income, sales and gas taxes to the nation's top levels. We won't know the full effect of those costs on either businesses or the ongoing exodus of the more affluent for months to come.

The News in Zingers. By Argus Hamilton
Excerpt: President Obama gave a TV speech Tuesday to try to rally support for bombing Syria despite overwhelming public opposition to an attack. The president only got one good review. Tiger Woods said he's a pretty good golfer for a guy who only plays five times a week.

First Lady Michelle Obama wants people to drink more plain water
Obama marriage shaky; Michelle asks us to drink more plain water, less Kool-aid.--George

Excerpt: A member of Afghanistan's Parliament has suggested that all those who have converted from Islam to Christianity should be executed, according to Islamic Sharia Law, in order to stop the rapid growth of Christianity among Afghans within and outside the country. (One of our “moderate” allies. ~Bob.)

Bipartisan Policy Center: 90% to 95% Certainty Government Money Will Run Out Between Oct. 18 and Nov. 5, Affecting Medicare, Social Security, Military and Veterans' Benefits on Nov. 1. By Damian Paletta
Excerpt: BPC said, for example, the government must pay roughly $12 billion in Social Security benefits on Oct. 23, $6 billion in interest payments on Oct. 31, and $55 billion in Medicare, Social Security, military and veterans benefits on Nov. 1. The group also said that spending cuts that would be required if the debt ceiling isn’t raised could be quite steep. For example, BPC said if the “X-date” arrives Oct. 18, the government would be $106 billion short on its bills between Oct. 18 and Nov. 15, leaving the government unable to pay 32% of the required funds during that time.

Study: US could default as early as Oct. 18, delay Social Security benefits. By Andrew Taylor
Excerpt: The political fallout would also be intense, especially if Social Security benefits are delayed. Tuesday's study predicts that if the default date — which is when the government cannot pay its bills in full and on time — comes on Oct. 18, the subsequent Social Security payments due on Nov. 1 could be delayed by almost two weeks.

Union ‘fix’ to Obamacare would cost taxpayers $190 billion
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/12/union-fix-to-obamacare-would-cost-taxpayers-190-billion/
Excerpt: A “fix” to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act proposed by unions would force taxpayers to pay nearly $190 billion to extend subsidies to union health plans, according to an analysis by the American Action Forum. (No problem—China’s good for it. ~Bob)

AFL-CIO: Obamacare implementation "highly disruptive"
Excerpt: At a convention in Los Angeles on Wednesday, the labor organization the AFL-CIO passed a resolution declaring that the Affordable Care Act will drive up costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them.

CNN Poll: Large Majority Opposes 'All' or 'Most' Obamacare Provisions. By Guy Benson 
Excerpt: Another day, another brutal poll for President Obama, this time on healthcare. … Obamacare's weak public support continues to erode Asked whether they support all or most of the law's provisions, or oppose all or most of the provisions.

Excerpt: A new story in the Wall Street Journal suggests that Lerner knew about the targeting much earlier than she has let on. She also took control of at least one case away from Cincinnati and ran it from Washington. The story is based on emails that Lerner sent and received, which have been discovered and released by the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. (Obama will protect her, for fear she will blab. ~Bob.)

What difference does it make? ~Bob

DC Government Nannies Want 24-Hour Waiting Period for Tattoos
Excerpt: Officials in Washington DC want a 24-hour waiting period for anyone wanting tattoos. “The licensee or operator of a body art establishment shall ensure that no tattoo artist applies any tattoo to a customer until after twenty-four hours have passed since the customer first requested the tattoo,” a new set of regulations from the city’s Department of Health states.(What's next a 72 hour wait to change underwear? --JB)

No Child Left Untableted. By Carlo Rotella
Excerpt: I teach college students, not middle schoolers, but I count on being able to read their faces and look them in the eye, and I would resist — O.K., freak out — if obliged to engage them through a screen in the classroom. And as a parent of middle schoolers, I would strenuously oppose any plan by their school to add so much screen time to my children’s days. 

Federal Government Pulls Aid to Food Pantry Because of Jesus
Excerpt: What many churches and Christians fail to realize is that attitude is playing into the government’s hands. Our federal government doesn’t want Christian charity to be the norm in America. Instead, they want everyone, and I mean everyone, to turn to the government for all of their needs. This is socialism 101 to its core.

Good Column: Patterns and Incidents. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: The media is not that concerned with suppressing incidents. It is concerned with suppressing pattern awareness. No one can deny that the occasional racial murder takes place and that the perpetrators look like Obama's sons. And no one can deny that Muslims sometimes set off bombs or fly planes into buildings. They deny only that these incidents form a pattern.

Ad on Obamacare

Muslim Terrorists in Philippines Use Christians as Human Shields. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: The Moro National Liberation Front isn’t just a terrorist group. It’s a terrorist group recognized by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. And it’s demonstrating the Islamic notion of cooperation in the Philippines.

AWESOME: Family dog alerts parents to abusive babysitter, hidden iPhone leads to arrest

Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele says it's "disrespectful" that her name doesn't fit on a drivers license

D.C. executive linked to secret 2008 aid to Hillary Clinton
Excerpt: The D.C. businessman at the center of an ongoing city corruption investigation secretly spent more than a half-million dollars on get-out-the-vote efforts for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, according to interviews and court documents filed Wednesday. (What difference does it make? ~Bob)

New FGM Statistics Shock England
Excerpt: More than 2,000 victims of female genital mutilation have sought treatment at London hospitals in the past three years. The figures, revealed by the Evening Standard, are the most dramatic illustration so far of the impact of this illegal and horrific practice on girls and women in the UK. (Obligatory media story fretting this will create Islamophobia and another mythical backlash against Muslims coming in 5…4…3 ~Bob)

Excerpt: Out of 117 predictions, the study’s author told FoxNews.com, three were roughly accurate and 114 overestimated the amount of warming. On average, the predictions forecasted two times more global warming than actually occurred. (Just following Nathan Bedford Forrest’s advice to “Get 'em skeered and keep the skeer on 'em.” ~Bob)
Excerpt: The Indiana University is laying off 50 workers and sending them to a temp agency because of Obamacare. Indiana University, which currently spends $215 million a year on health care, will shift 50 maintenance and custodial employees to an outside contractor that will hire them and will manage their hours. (Obama’s pivot to jobs was just to wave goodbye. ~Bob)

Injustice: UK Doctors Caught Arranging Sex-Selective Abortions Face No Prosecution
Excerpt: “It’s like female infanticide, isn’t it?” Even Dr. Raf Mohan at the Calthorpe Clinic in Edgbaston, Birmingham acknowledged that the sex selection abortion procedure he was agreeing to was an intentional killing practice. (The real “war on women.” ~Bob)

What do Australia and Norway have in common? (Unpopular center-left policies) By Micahel Barone
Excerpt: These both have income levels higher than almost any other country and they suffered little or not at all from the 2007-09 recession. Yet both have rejected incumbent parties and have voted for more conservative alternatives. Is there any common thread?

Syria

I’d tend to be more fully accepting that Assad used gas against his people if I could figure out why he would take the risk of American air strikes against his military for such a small tactical advantage. ~Bob

Jihadis gain ground in Syrian rebel movement as moderates grow desperate
Excerpt: Syrian opposition activists tell NBC News that Bashar Assad is getting away with having used chemical weapons to massacre hundreds of civilians, and that giving the regime a pass will only benefit al-Qaeda extremists.
Excerpt: A look at his remarks to the nation, seeking support for a military strike against Syria,

The ‘Brilliant Diplomatic Breakthrough’ on Syria: “It can’t be done,” Kerry said of the Russian plan — yesterday. Today, it’s genius. By Andrew Stiles
Excerpt: In light of these developments, theWall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonanadvised readers to “get ready for the spin job of all spin jobs.” This diplomatic solution was made possible only by the credible threat of military action (something that Kerry had promised would be “unbelievably small,” and that Congress was poised to vote down). This was no gaffe, we were reassured — it was crafty statesmanship.

Excerpt: The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war. (I think that there is almost zero chance that some of these weapons will not be used eventually to kill Americans and Israelis. ~Bob)

NBC News Admits "Free Syrian Army" is a Myth. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Few media outlets are willing to say that out loud, but it’s quite true. There is no Free Syrian Army. It’s an umbrella for providing Western aid to a front group run by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Graphic: Syria chemical weapons sites. By Mark Oliver
Excerpt: The think tank has presented an inventory of Syria's production and storage facilities that it states the regime began stockpiling in the 1980s. The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism report states that the regime has a large supply of VX, which is a deadly nerve gas, as well as Sarin, the agent thought to have been used in the chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus last month that killed 1,400 people.

GRAPHIC: Ikea flatpack tent for use in Syria. By Mark Oliver
Excerpt: Swedish furniture giant Ikea is working with the UNHCR to produce a flatpack refugee shelter that can be rapidly assembled in crisis zones, such as in Syria, where over one million people have fled the country.

Is Putin, a Big Assad Supplier, Seriously Going to Disarm Him? By Eli Lake
Excerpt: Russia claims it can help disarm Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. But Putin hasn’t handled his own stockpile properly, according to the State Department, and he’s one of Assad’s most important suppliers. 

Obama's Syria address: do we look that dumb? By Michael Cohen
Excerpt: In fact, the reason we uphold and enforce norms, like those on chemical weapons, is not because the world is a hotbed of violence, but actually, because it's never been safer. Sometimes, it is necessary to punish behavior that goes far beyond commonly accepted international norms and legal rules governing armed conflict.

Feckless Obama embarrasses the nation. By John Podhoretz
Excerpt: In an effort to comprehend President Obama’s policy toward the use of chemical weapons in Syria — which now involves our pretending that Russia will disarm a country it has been arming nonstop for 55 years — please journey with me to a time before recorded history, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

Kerry and McCain's Syrian Rebel Expert Fired For Faking Her Academic Credentials. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: I’m sure all the Christians murdered by her Jihadist friends share her pain. Elizabeth O’Bagy has been getting a lot of attention for her Wall Street Journal op-ed which falsely claimed that most of the Syrian rebels were moderates. McCain and Kerry both cited her work.

Obama’s tough task: Getting Americans to care about chemical weapons use in Syria
Excerpt: As President Obama has made the case for U.S. military intervention in Syria, his most starkly emotional appeal has focused on images of dead and wounded kids. (Well, Obama didn’t care much about Kurdish kids gassed by Saddam, wanted to leave him in power. Few did. ~Bob.)

France says West must not be fooled by proposed Syria deal
Excerpt: France said on Thursday it would be clear next week whether a Russian proposal to control Syria's chemical weapons was credible, but warned of a risk of being fooled if Western allies do not stick to their demands. (It’s not that Obama trusts Russia or believes this will work. He is grasping at this straw as the only way out of the trap he built for himself, with the Congress, the public and most nations lined up against him. You can bet the White House is urgently searching for someone to blame when this flops, be it George Bush, Global Warming or Judge Crater. It won’t be at all credible, but the media will carry water for him, so it may work. ~Bob.)

Good Column: In full retreat on Syria. By Michael Gerson
Excerpt: Sometimes a president does not have a communications problem. Sometimes a president has a reality problem. resident Obama's speech to the nation on Syria was premised on the denial of reality. 

A Plea for Caution From Russia. By Vladimar V Putin, New York Times, September 11, 2013
Excerpt: MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies. Relations between us have passed through different stages.

Putin Shows Obama How To Provide Decisive Leadership. By Con Coughlin
Excerpt: The introduction of the New York Times's new star columnist, Vladimir V Putin, this morning should provide Barack Obama with a few useful tips on how to make a persuasive argument to the American people about tackling the Syrian crisis. By contrast with Mr Obama's unfathomable televised address earlier this week, Mr Putin, whose day job is running Russia, managed to set out a lucid and powerful argument on why the West should proceed with caution on Syria.

Excerpt: In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ed Asner, the actor who once portrayed a hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners newsroom editor says the Hollywood community is afraid to differ with Obama’s foreign policies because they fear being labeled “anti-black.” “A lot of people don’t want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama,” Asner told the Reporter.

O’Bagy, where art thou? Can a 26-year-old be a Syria ‘expert’?
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/12/obagy-where-art-thou-can-a-26-year-old-be-a-syria-expert/
Excerpt: The Institute for the Study of War fired Syria researcher Elizabeth O’Bagy yesterday for lying about having a Ph.D. This came on the heels of revelations (first reported by The Daily Caller) that she was a paid advocate for the rebels. … In fact, “O’Bagy started at the institute as an unpaid intern and was pulled into their work on Syria when a researcher needed a fluent Arabic speaker, which transformed her internship into a much longer gig,” reports Politico. 

Henninger: The Laurel and Hardy Presidency: After the Syrian slapstick, it's time to sober up U.S. foreign policy.
Excerpt: A consensus assessment of the past week's events could easily form around Oliver Hardy's famous lament to the compulsive bumbler Stan Laurel: "Here's another nice mess you've gotten us into!" In the interplay between Barack Obama and John Kerry, it's not obvious which one is Laurel and which one is Hardy.

Nancy Pelosi slams the New York Times for running Vladimir Putin column. By Joel Gehrke 
Excerpt: "Vladimir Putin is not in a strong constitutional democracy where people have their say, so he comes here and has his say, but, it has to have some fidelity to fact," Pelosi said during her weekly press briefing. "It's, I guess, a lobbyist who gets him that big space in the New York Times," she added.

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