Friday, December 18, 2015

More Holiday Cheer in the Political News!

Pardon the typo, which a Marine buddy pointed out:
It was Khe Sanh, 1967 (not 1976):
"Jingle Bells, Mortar Shells,
VC in the grass.
You can take your Merry Christmas
And stick it up your azz!"

Merry Christmas
Menes to share

Book Recommendation: The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld by Herbert Asbury 
This interesting book was the basis for the popular movie. As history it's very informal; readers will have to discern the line between fact, hearsay and fable. And since it was written in 1928, the slang may be unfamiliar. Some I got by context, some by Google. Still, for those who think that crime and riots in our cities are a new phenomena, this will be an eye-opener. (Though the author's assertion that "in this modern age," gangs are a thing of the past brinks a wry chuckle.) For those who think the recent riots in Ferguson and Baltimore were due to race, this book discusses in detail the New York draft riots during the Civil War. The rioters were white, the victims often black (or, as today, cops) and the death toll and damage far worse. As I never tire i9f saying, the problems of the cities are due to culture, not race. In the UK today, the social pathologies of urban areas are highly concentrated in white English folk. You will note that the police were less constrained in those days, visiting violence upon the malefactors in person. As one leading cop said, "There is more justice in a policeman's nightstick" than in a court ruling.

BONHOEFFER'S LAST ADVENT
Excerpt: The world lives by the blessing of God and of the righteous and thus has a future. Blessing means laying one’s hands on something and saying, Despite everything, you belong to God. This is what we do with the world that inflicts such suffering on us. We do not abandon it; we do not repudiate, despise or condemn it. Instead we call it back to God, we give it hope, we lay our hand on it and say: May God’s blessing come upon you, may God renew you; be blessed, world created by God, you who belong to your Creator and Redeemer.

Interesting: The Intelligence Lessons of San Bernardino. 'Home grown terror' is new nightmare for American authorities who had previously thwarted it with perfection. By John R. Schindler 
Excerpt:  Just as bad, several top secret NSA programs, beyond metadata, that assisted counterterrorism have been downscaled since 2013 out of fears they may “look bad” if leaked. Before Snowden we had a definite bias for action,” explained a senior NSA official with extensive experience in counterterrorism. “But now we all wonder how the White House will react if this winds up in the newspapers.” “It’s all legal,” the official added, “the lawyers have approved, and boy do we have lots of lawyers -- but will Obama throw us under the bus again?

The widows and children that scare the GOP: Hundreds of migrants arriving in Norway had mobile phones containing images of executions, severed heads and dead children, police reveal
Of course everyone keeps some favorite pictures. And what do you learn from examining the pictures people carry with them on their cell phones as they wander across the world looking for a place that will give them refugee status?  Maybe something about their personal values? Perish the thought! --Del

Chattanooga shooting victims will receive Purple Heart
That was pretty fast, wasn’t it? In mid-November, FBI Director James Comey and
investigators were telling the public we may never know what motivated a 24-year-old Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez to kill four Marines and a sailor in an attack on Chattanooga’s U.S. Naval and Marine Reserve Center in July . . .Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt

Surprise, surprise, surprise: Administration nixed probe into Southern California jihadists
We need big, live-televised hearings on these allegations. --Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt.

Facebook, Twitter, Google Collude With German Government To Censor Discussion On Immigration
Excerpt: The two largest social networks, Facebook and Twitter, and the world’s largest search engine, Google, have teamed up with German law enforcement to delete “hate speech” within 24 hours in what is being seen as a last-ditch effort to silence public dissent about a gigantic wave of Syrian immigration. The partnership to crack down on what Germany deems illegal speech comes after German law enforcement’s reported concerns about “racist abuse” posted to social media after the country’s huge and extremely controversial import of over a million Syrian refugees.  ...Specialist teams will be used to track down, examine, and remove offending posts, and the process is not to take more than 24 hours. (Maybe they still have family in Deutschland the party can harm...~Bob)

Separation of Mosque and State? Students practice calligraphy by writing "There is no god but Allah"
Excerpt: A Virginia school district is defending a classroom assignment that required students to practice calligraphy by writing the Muslim statement of faith, “There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Female students at Riverheads  High School in StauntonVirginia, were also invited to wear Muslim clothing -- a story first reported by The Schilling Show. ... The teacher had the kids copy the Muslim statement of faith, also known as the shahada. (They have to be carefully taught.  Parents have a RIGHT to be outraged by this.  Toss the 10 Commandments, let the ACLU remove GOD from the entire country but it is okay with the federal narrative, to encourage Islam, train the young minds.  Now you know why those "You are safe" speeches are so insincere.  Incidentally, link to this story on Fox is corrupted; goes to story about jet going off runway. --Barb. If they had written "Jesus is Lord" they would be in court now for suits from the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. ~Bob)

Denmark: Jihad, migrants stretching police resources to breaking point

We're Next: Sweden Descends into Anarchy. By Ingrid Carlqvist
Excerpt: "You have to understand that Swedes are really scared when an asylum house opens in their village. They can see what has happened in other places." — Salesman for alarm systems." "Since Parliament decided in 1975 that Sweden should be multicultural and not Swedish, crime has exploded. Violent crime has increased by over 300% and rapes have increased by an unbelievable 1,472%." "Many Swedes see the mass immigration as a forced marriage: Sweden is forced to marry a man she did not choose, yet she is expected to love and honor him, even though he beats her and treats her badly. Her parents (the government) tell her to be warm and show solidarity with him.

ISIS Twitter accounts traced to UK Department of Works and Pensions

Nothing to do with Islam, of course. Italy: Muslims screaming “Allahu akbar” attack soldiers at Rome cathedral


Newly arrived Syrians arrested in Geneva with explosives and chemical weapons

Widows and Children Alert: Swiss confirm arrest of two Syrians 'transporting explosives'

American Professor Instructs Students That It’s Ok To Rape and Murder Non-Muslims
Excerpt: Meet Abu Ammaar Yasir Kazi. He’s not some crazy Imam in the Middle East. He’s a college professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, who was described by New York Times Magazine as “one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam.” In lectures to students at this American college, he blasts those in his class as being filthy and impure. He then steps up his vitriolic diatribes, by tearing into Christians, where he compares them to feces and urine, saying they are the “most evil of evils.” He then instructs his students that they should engage in jihad and fight all unbelievers until they convert...

The widows and kids the GOP is scared of: Mother of the Year=> Jihadi Blows Up Herself and Her Three Children at Afghan Checkpoint

Pal of San Bernardino terrorists arrested on federal charges
Excerpt: Enrique Marquez, who allegedly bought the guns used by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik when they stormed a social services facility where Farook’s office was holding a holiday party, is in federal custody on as-yet unspecified charges.

Worth Reading: Families of terrorists see no evil, speak no evil. By Victor Davis Hanson

Long, well worth reading: Islam, Europe , and the Tet Offensive, Take Two
Matthew Bracken is a former Navy SEAL with a BA in Russian Studies from the University of Virginia .  In 1983 he led a Naval Special Warfare detachment to Beirut, Lebanon . Links to his short stories and essays can be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com.

Attn: Obama! Defense Secretary Ash Carter has some news about ISIS [video]

Interesting: Anyone saying ‘Islam Is A Religion Of Peace’ needs to read this. One may well ask how ‘the religion of peace’ became a brand of Islam, for the phrase cannot be found in the Qur’an, nor in the teachings of Muhammad. By Mark Durie
Mark Durie is a theologian, a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and author of The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude and Freedom.

Worth Hearing: By The Numbers - The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions & Demographics
By a Muslim.

Excerpt: Some parents at a Minnesota school are upset with a choir teacher’s decision to have students sing a Ramadan song that includes the words “Allahu akbar” during a holiday concert. For a Thursday night holiday concert at Blaine High School, one of the songs chosen is “Eid un Sa’Eid,” an English-language song with some Arabic words that celebrates the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The lyrics, in part, go as follows:

Hamas top dog: “The so-called peace process is futile. There is no peace. Only the path of Jihad, sacrifice, and blood.”

Really? Husband's furious family call for a divorce after his wife is caught kissing a CAMEL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3362121/Husband-s-furious-family-call-divorce-wife-caught-kissing-CAMEL.html
Seems okay to me--but then I'm a real kiss-ass. See below. ~Bob


Worth Reading: WE'RE OFFENDED, TEAR IT DOWN AND TEAR IT DOWN NOW! By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Interesting: Mistrial declared in first Freddie Gray case
Excerpt: The judge announced a mistrial in the case of the first officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, after jurors in Baltimore announced they could not reach a unanimous decision. (The cop charged was black. Be easier to get a conviction of the white cops. ~Bob)

Winners and Losers from the 5th Republican presidential debate

THE CNN/FACEBOOK GOP PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE - A FEW THOUGHTS. By Col. Andy Weddington, USMC (Ret)

Satellite Data on Global Temps. From Del

Freedom of Speech restored: With Walker’s signature, the GAB is dead. By M.D. Kittle  
Excerpt: Ding dong, the witch-hunter is dead. More than a month after the Republican-led Legislature passed a bill dismantling the state Government Accountability Board, Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday finally signed the bill into law — with a partial veto. The bill’s supporters, including conservatives targeted by the GAB and Milwaukee County prosecutors in the unconstitutional and politically driven John Doe probe, rejoiced while the left prophesied biblical-proportion campaign finance and election law disasters.

The Real Cause Of Campus Racism
Has anyone told the students that, while only some Rebel armies carried the Confederate Battle Flag, they all wore Gray? That racist color and name must be banned. And to minority students at Michigan State: The Spartans were among the biggest slave owners of the cent world. Probably more than 50% of the people under Spartan control were helots, as slaves there were called. ~Bob

Reshaping America’s Views of Veterans. By David McCormick

Russian Media Explodes With Vulgar and Racist Anti-Obama Rhetoric
'Obama Schmoe,' monkey comparisons and 'chimney sweep' used to disparage American president.

Hollywood Star Kurt Russell Calls Gun Grabbers “Insane”!
Excerpt:  “If you think gun control is going to change the terrorists’ point of view, I think you’re, like, out of your mind. I think anybody [who says that] is. I think it’s absolutely insane. (There is some  sanity left in Hollywood after all.--JB)

Worth Reading: The Progressive Panopticon of Political Correctness. By Daniel Greenfield
Excerpt: Around the time that the United States Constitution had been hammered out, across the way in the UK, social theorist Jeremy Bentham was coming up with the Panopticon. Bentham had denounced the ideas of the Declaration of Independence as "subversive of every actual or imaginable kind of Government". He demanded that force be used to "teach this rebellious people" that "there is no peace with them, but the peace of the King". After the "Peace of the King" failed in the United States, Bentham turned to his obsession with the Panopticon. The Panopticon would be a prison in which all the prisoners could be watched all the time to achieve, in Bentham's words, "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example." (What an incisive analysis of how things are meant to work to steadily increase control until it's minds that are being controlled.  Mind control has been pushed and practiced in many ways over history, but it was Lenin and his helpers who really developed the policies and practices that have proven to work so well.  When the schools are total indoctrination centers, when every block of apartments has one known government monitor and some unknown number of others who will report on anything and everything, when the same is true at every workplace, and when the "authorities" can bring down a whole range of punishments on anyone at any time, when the children are encouraged to inform on parents, grandparents, neighbors, then life becomes a dangerous journey through a dense minefield where you cannot trust anyone.  It worked in Russia and the satellite countries, it worked in China, it worked in Cuba, and it worked in Viet Nam.  The old Russian joke was "when three people talk about politics, two are KGB and the third is a fool", but it wasn't really all that funny. Now we have a new way of motivating what people can think and say.  And if you don't want be labeled a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist, a "denier", an Islamophobe, "Far Right", or guilty of "microaggressions", you need to think carefully before you speak or write.  Watch out for all those mines just waiting for your careless step to go off and scorch you. But there are still a lot of Americans who will speak their minds, unafraid.  Sadly, the media and so many of our leaders and famous people are mired in the PC mentality, which seems to just keep spreading like a bad fungus.  Hopefully the revolt is coming and PC will go on the trash heap sometime soon. --Del)

Bernie Sanders group feeling ‘Berned’ over library snub. By M.D. Kittle 
Excerpt: The Milwaukee Public Library is feeling the Bern over a campaign booking controversy. Patrick Doyle, a Milwaukee volunteer with Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, is taking the library on N. Cramer Street to task for apparently allowing library community space for Hillary Clinton backers while rejecting a similar request from the Bernie brigade.

Defense Secretary Carter used personal email in first months on the job

The Christian Case For Libertarianism

Interesting: Obama's Finest Hour of Utter Fraud. By James Delingpole
Great analysis of the big Paris party where nothing actually happened, but the travel of everyone back and forth there put out more CO2 than some small countries generate. I will mention that I recently registered with a particular site about skeptics, but it turned out to be the skeptics about the skeptics of AGW theory, better known on the site as "denialists", all of whom are terrible, rotten people who are prepared to watch billions die of heat stroke and lots of islands vanish making millions homeless as the seas rise. Since I had just found some very nice satellite temperature data compiled by a professor who believes in AGW (so it wasn't "manipulated" by those denialists into being false data), which data actually shows no real warming for over 15 years, I thought I'd very carefully, tactfully bring that up and thus remind all the scientists on the site that there is after all some rationale for not totally accepting the warming theory as gospel. This was a mistake of historic proportions.  They fell on me like an old building crashing down, with assorted accusations and zingy comments.  I replied courteously, reminding the crowd that as scientists we are supposed to be tolerant and respectful of those with different views.  This brought a fresh set of attacks.  I tried one last time, speaking softly, to point out their own data and how it proves the computer models are way off, and mentioned details like the recent report by the feds on how we've had the longest record ever for low incidence of hurricanes, so all the claims of huge spikes in storms and floods seem to be a tad overstated.  Needless to say, the screaming only increased.  I gave up, apologized for inflicting any kind of unwelcome inputs in what I had mistaken for a place where science could be discussed in a reasonable manner, and said goodbye. As a scientist, I find it incredibly sad and depressing that so many people with high IQs and advanced degrees in science have lost all appreciation for how science really functions and how emotions are not supposed to play a role in it, much less a defining role that overrides all else.  I don't know what they're teaching in the universities these days, but apparently it's not the cultivation of objectivity and the concept of reasoned, courteous debate.  I wonder how long it will take before the "pause" is so long that some of these geniuses will start to have trouble still writing it off as not being significant. --Del

Chess master Garry Kasparov equates Putin with Don Corleone

Worth Reading: Does Conservatism Matter in Republican Nomination Contest?. By Mona Charen
Excerpt: Does this mean Donald Trump's standing is illusory? No, his lead has remained steady for six months. But to believe that he will be the nominee you must believe that Republican voters from Iowa to Pennsylvania to California to Michigan will choose as their standard bearer someone who has favored single-payer health care, racial preferences, a ban on "assault" weapons, drug legalization, abortion, eminent domain (oh, does he favor eminent domain) and who invited Hillary Clinton to his wedding (one of them). You must convince yourself that Republicans will choose a man who opposes entitlement reform, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, free trade and elementary good manners. Above all, Republicans would be choosing someone whose policy proposals are essentially barroom blurts.

Bernie Sanders’ camp suspended from DNC voter database after viewing Hillary Clinton’s data
Excerpt: The Democratic National Committee has temporarily cut off Sen. Bernard Sanders‘ presidential campaign from accessing its voter files after a staffer viewed private voter information compiled by the campaign of 2016 Democratic rival and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mr. Sanders‘ campaign has fired one staffer over the incident. His campaign manager blamed the software vendor hired by the DNC for a glitch that enabled the access, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the news.

Interesting: Why This Year’s Christmas Season Is So Angry. It’s the economy, loser.
Excerpt: Diane Farmer, 54, is a lifelong Democrat from the New York City area now living in Palm Beach County, Fla. She attended Catholic schools and later belonged to unions while working for a phone company and then in a court clerk’s office. She voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. But Farmer says she’s never been more excited about a candidate than she is this time. Her choice? Donald Trump. (72 Percent of Americans Think the Country Is Still in a Recession. Bloomberg BusinessWeek points out the obvious, which is why despite the Obama administration’s crowing about the economy, neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders are running on a vow to continue his economic record. --Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt)

OBAMA HUDDLES WITH BLOOMBERG AS HE PREPS ORDER ON GUNS. Closed-door meeting aimed at clamping 2nd Amendment
Excerpt: President Obama went behind closed doors, and off official White House schedule, to meet with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg – the nanny of city governance who’s helped finance a massive campaign to challenge with National Rifle Association – and discuss gun control. “The two discussed ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have access to them and what more could be done at the state and local level to help address gun violence in America,” the White House said in a statement released after the meeting. Obama’s close adviser, Valerie Jarrett, also attended the White House meeting, Breitbart reported.



























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