I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article. Help your friends and relatives stay informed by passing the digest on.
Worth Reading
Still, it is necessary for at least those members of the elite engaged in politics to pretend they have some religious faith. “Paris Washington Middle East . In light of this Western history, how strong is the motive to reform Islam? The answer is that it is far less strong than outside observers may think. The year is 2010, not 1517 when Martin Luther proclaimed his revolt against the Catholic Church and could in full confidence believe his reform would strengthen Christianity, as it arguably did for several centuries. Can Muslims believe the equivalent of that idea today? It is 2010, not the 1820s or 1830s when Strauss and Paulus could believe that a thorough critical inquiry into Christianity would preserve its hegemony in European society. Can Muslims believe the equivalent of that idea today? Islam suffers not due to any military or economic aggression of the West, but from the pervasiveness of apparently Western — but really more generically modern — ideas. For the great majority of believing Muslims, any serious reform of their religion is risky, probably too risky, to undertake and still expect the patient will survive.
Important: Do Americans still believe freedom leads to prosperity?
Excerpt: The market happens like gravity happens – talent, capital and creativity are attracted to countries where they are wanted and well-treated. Intellectual resources gravitated to the American economy where they were put to their highest and most productive use. The scope, scale and volume of American production became the center of gravity in the economic universe. Just as planets orbit the sun, so too did the world’s economies orbit the United States Columbia United States United States
Happy Hanukah
Nice cartoon. This site has some great ones. I recommend it. ~Bob.
Obama's Trade Contortions
Excerpt: But let's assume the Obama administration is mentally stuck in 1930s Italy Colombia , the third largest market for agricultural imports in Latin America . American farmers now pay an average 16.5% tariff on exports to Colombia Colombia 's ministry of trade, "countries like Argentina [which is part of an FTA] are rapidly displacing U.S.
The Age of Adolescence
Excerpt: One of the great themes of the 1960s was to “do your own thing.” But usually “liberation” distilled down to creating your own rules and norms to justify allowing the appetites and passions to run free, while offering some sort of exalted cover for being either gross or mediocre — or both. The hip generation that came of age talked about a new, perpetually youthful world that would supplant the values and aspirations of a fading bankrupt establishment (e.g., cf. Bob Dylan’s “the order is rapidly fading”). And in time the promise of the sixties, in fact, did permeate the last half-century, creating a contemporary culture of perpetual adolescence, of defying norms and protocols without offering anything much in their place.
Lawmaker proposes volunteer force for border
Excerpt: With a new Republican majority and a different governor, a veteran state lawmaker is resurrecting plans to create a state civilian militia that could be called out to patrol the border. Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, said Monday he wants a group of trained civilians that the governor could call out in times of emergency such as natural disasters. And he said the governor also could place the volunteers on the border. But Harper, who is moving to the state House in January, said that is only part of the plan. He also is crafting a second measure so that, once the Homeland Security Force was established, the governor would have to deploy not only the volunteers but the National Guard to the border if the federal government reduces the number of federally funded Guard soldiers now based there.
Krysten Knievel on IPF
Evel’s Granddaughter. Based here in Chicago
Keep the Cuts, Cut the Breaks
Congress starts its lame-duck session this week with a tax battle. Democrats want to extend, at least temporarily, the Bush tax cuts for families making under $250,000. Republicans want to extend the cuts for everyone—including those in the upper-income brackets—forever. They’re both wrong. A better approach would be to keep all the cuts, but only on the condition that we pay for them by junking the tax breaks that corrode our economy. An effective tax code would raise money for the government without intruding on private economic activity. Tax rates—that is, the percentage of your income that you fork over to Uncle Sam—would be as low as possible while still funding public spending. Tax breaks—the government’s rewards and penalties for certain behavior—would be minimal to nonexistent. That is, you wouldn’t get a tax break for carrying a big mortgage on your house or living in an expensive state (or both).
How EPA Could Destroy 7.3 Million Jobs
Liberal shibboleths, like Going Green, trade barriers and killing black kids by banning DDT to save birds always take precedence over jobs for working folks, however much they prate about it. ~Bob. Excerpt: Here we are, with 15 million Americans unemployed and millions more underemployed, and the EPA is moving blindly ahead with new regulations that will increase dramatically the energy costs of U.S.
Will a taste of civility lead to bipartisanship?
Excerpt: After shutting Republicans out of the healthcare debacle and not including anything from their healthcare bills (despite promises to the contrary during the 2008 campaign) the 2010 GOP victory has revived the need for bi-partisanship among Obots. I’m 100% for civility (Which goes both ways. We won’t call Obama Hitler if they apologize for calling Bush Hitler.) Bipartisanship is fine on some things, but you cannot compromise principles. If a thief holds you up, you pull a gun and a third party steps in and says, “Let’s compromise—give him half your money,” the thief wins. And will be back next week for the other half. As Ayn Rand said, “When good compromises with evil, evil always wins.” ~Bob. Excerpt: After a campaign notable for invective and negativity, a modicum of civility has broken out in Washington
Waters wants answers on why ethics attorneys were placed on leave
The cornered Demo-corrupt rat spots a hole in the traps and sprints for daylight? Will she get away without the dreaded wrist-slap? Stay tuned. ~Bob. Excerpt: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is calling on the ethics committee to explain why it placed the two attorneys handling her case on administrative leave the same day it delayed her public trial. “It appears that we now know the real reason for the delay: Something has gone wrong in the ethics process,” she said in a lengthy statement issued late Wednesday afternoon.
Rep. King on Pigford: 'We're Not Going to Pay Slavery Reparations'
Hey, they can just print more money. ~Bob.
Hill 881 South: Captain William Dabney
Very moving. I served with the 26th Marines, but was lucky to rotate home from Khe Sanh on September 10, 1967, well before all this nastiness. Dabney is one of the many heroes of Vietnam
The Met Office: lousier than a dead octopus
I talked to friends in Scotland Edinburgh
US family under siege by drug cartels
Don’t think this won’t affect you. I think this would be a great spot for the Obamas' next vacation, without pesky Secret service guards to spoil the fun. ~Bob.
Excerpt: Anyone remember that exactly one year ago President Obama's original deadline for Iran Iran Iran
We seem to be the slowest suicide since the Roman Empire fell. ~Bob. Excerpt: Two uranium mines in Wyoming
Austrian MP Ewald Stadler to Turkish Ambassador: "People are Sick and Tired of the One-Way Street Tolerance Babble Which You Feed On"
Excerpt: Austrian MP Ewald Stadler's powerful address to the Turkish Ambassador. Finally ...... an eviscerating response to Turkish Islamic supremacism. Perhaps Obama will stop kissing Erdogan's ass?
Attacks on Nuclear Scientists in Tehran
Excerpt: On the morning of Nov. 29, two Iranian scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear development program were attacked. One was killed, and the other was injured. According to Iranian media, the deceased, Dr. Majid Shahriari, was heading the team responsible for developing the technology to design a nuclear reactor core, and Time magazine referred to him as the highest-ranking non-appointed individual working on the project. Official reports indicate that Shahriari was killed when assailants on motorcycles attached a “sticky bomb” to his vehicle and detonated it seconds later. However, the Time magazine report says that an explosive device concealed inside the car detonated and killed him. Shahriari’s driver and wife, both of whom were in the car at the time, were injured. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of town, Dr. Fereidoon Abassi was injured in a sticky-bomb attack reportedly identical to the one officials said killed Shahriari. His wife was accompanying him and was also injured (some reports indicate that a driver was also in the car at the time of the attack). Abassi and his wife are said to be in stable condition. Abassi is perhaps even more closely linked to Iran’s nuclear program than Shahriari was, since he was a member of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and was named in a 2007 U.N. resolution that sanctioned high-ranking members of Iran’s defense and military agencies believed to be trying to obtain nuclear weapons…. It is unlikely that any foreign power was able to conduct this operation by itself and equally unlikely that any indigenous militant group was able to pull off an attack like this without some assistance. The combination of the two, however, could provide an explanation of how the attacks targeting Shariari and Abassi got so close to complete success. 9everyone looks at Israel
Who's Killing the Great Nuclear Scientists of Iran
Excerpt: Who is killing the great nuclear scientists of Iran Israel and the United States
Mexican Drug Cartel-Related Murders Exceed 10,000 So Far This Year
Every drug dealer and drug abuser in the US Mexico U.S. military fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan Mexico
The New York Times' WikiLeaks Hypocrisy
Excerpt: When leaked e-mails exposed the global warming hype to be a concocted fraud, the "newspaper of record" was in high dudgeon. When stolen classified information appears on its front page, that's another story. Given its track record of exposing U.S. secrets on its front pages, we may be thankful that the New York Times did not have the plans to the Normandy
Second Genesis on Earth?
Excerpt: All life on Earth - from microbes to elephants and us - is based on a single genetic model that requires the element phosphorus as one of its six essential components. But now researchers have uncovered a bacterium that has five of those essential elements but has, in effect, replaced phosphorus with its look-alike but toxic cousin arsenic. (Arsenic, huh. May prove evolution. This may be where liberals come from! Oh, lighten up, just a joke. ~Bob.)
Excerpt: "Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them." -- Qur'an 4:34. Islamic apologists in the West routinely insist that Muslims aren't really supposed to beat their wives at all, or that if they are, they should only beat them lightly, and that Muhammad said to beat one's wife only with a toothbrush. They never mention, of course, how Muhammad's favorite wife, Aisha, recounted the time when Muhammad "struck me on the chest which caused me pain." And with Muhammad being the supreme example of conduct for Muslims (cf. Qur'an 33:21), that doesn't bode well for Muslim women.
Excerpt: Temporary marriage, or mut'a, is the practice of entering into a marriage with a time limit: the couple is married only for a night, or a week, or whatever time period their agreement specifies. So in other words, it is prostitution under the guise of morality. Temporary wives are found in large numbers in seminary towns where young clerics-in-training are away from home and lonely. This is a Shi'ite concept that mainstream Sunnis ostensibly reject; the Shi'ites point out that Muhammad allowed it, while the Sunnis maintain that he later abolished the practice. Shi'ites also justify it by reference to Qur'an 4:24, which says: "And those of whom ye seek content (by marrying them), give unto them their portions as a duty. And there is no sin for you in what ye do by mutual agreement after the duty (hath been done)." They see in that reference to "what ye do by mutual agreement" the allowance of a time limit. Sharia Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: "Iran hangs former soccer player's mistress," from the Associated Press, December 1 (thanks to S.K.S.): Iran on Wednesday hanged a former soccer player's mistress _ known as a "temporary wife _ who was convicted of murdering her love rival, the player's wife, the official IRNA news agency reported. Shahla Jahed was hanged at dawn, after spending more than eight years in jail, IRNA said, in a case that has captivated the Iranian public for several years.
Sentenced to 70 lashes for turning on bluetooth near a women's shopping centre
Why I never opened the package with my Bluetooth in it. The courts just knocked down the vote of the citizens of Oklahoma Taif
In moderate Indonesia province of Aceh
Quote
There is nothing like seeing the other fellow run to bring back your courage! ~ William Joseph Slim
Washington is why the economy is not growing
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/mark-tapscott-washington-why-economy-not-growing
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2010/12/mark-tapscott-washington-why-economy-not-growing
Excerpt: With unemployment still near 10 percent, and experts saying that won't change much, if at all, in 2011, it seems clear the economy is dead in the water. We need look no further than right here in the nation's capital to understand why. On every front, the federal government is creating more investment-killing tax uncertainty, issuing endless pages of new bureaucratic regulations on the economy, and preventing firms from taking actions that could create hundreds of thousands of new positions and kick-start a muscular recovery with real legs. Political grandstanding by President Obama and Democratic leaders of the lame-duck Congress like Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York on extending the Bush tax cuts is only the most obvious example of how Washington is why the economy is at a standstill.
Unleashing U.S. energy resources could spark economic recovery
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2010/12/ben-lieberman-unleashing-us-energy-resources-could-spark-economic-recovery
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2010/12/ben-lieberman-unleashing-us-energy-resources-could-spark-economic-recovery
Excerpt: If raising energy-related revenues is the goal, why not fill federal coffers in a manner that actually reduces the price at the pump? Washington can accomplish this by allowing more oil drilling. The federal government controls all offshore areas beyond three miles from the coast, as well as vast expanses of energy-rich western lands. Unfortunately, only a fraction of these areas have been opened to energy leasing, due to legislative and regulatory restrictions. For example, a 2008 Department of the Interior report concluded that only 8 percent of the estimated 31 billion barrels of oil beneath federal lands is fully available for leasing, while 30 percent is subject to significant restrictions and 62 percent is entirely off-limits.
Posts
WikiLeaks - seems like treason to me?
ReplyDeleteBorder - put more guards on it. Shoot to stop the invasion if necessary.