Showing posts with label Nobel Prize. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nobel Prize. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Get yours now!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Political Digest October 13, 2009
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
Another poem in Horowitz’s Blog
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/12/lunch-break-42/
Steep Losses Pose Crisis for Pensions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101002360.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The financial crisis has blown a hole in the rosy forecasts of pension funds that cover teachers, police officers and other government employees, casting into doubt as never before whether these public systems will be able to keep their promises to future generations of retirees. (But see the next item.)
Dems Push to Expand CRA
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTYwNGU0MjRmMTRlMjQ0MTI4ZjVlNzFmZGRkYWJlNzk=
Let’s see if we can’t create even a bigger economic meltdown! I’ve read that Bank of America took 29% losses in the $750B it was required to lend to poor people under the CRA. Excerpt: A number of experts believe that aggressive enforcement of the 1970s-era Community Reinvestment Act contributed to the mortgage meltdown, and thus to the greater financial crisis, by requiring financial institutions to lend to unqualified borrowers. Now, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is responding to that situation by proposing to expand the scope and power of the Community Reinvestment Act. This morning House Financial Services Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank held a hearing on H.R. 1479, the "Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009." The bill's purpose is "to close the wealth gap in the United States" by increasing "home ownership and small business ownership for low- and moderate-income borrowers and persons of color." It would extend CRA's strict lending requirements to non-bank institutions like credit unions, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders. It would also make CRA more explicitly race-based by requiring CRA standards to be applied to minorities, regardless of income, going beyond earlier requirements that applied solely to low- and moderate-income areas.
Now the 'Loyal Opposition,' McCain Keeps Pressure on Obama
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101001346.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: "I said I don't think we should have a leisurely process," McCain recalled. The president did not respond immediately, but when he was wrapping up the meeting, he came back to what McCain had said. According to several people in the room, Obama said, "John, this won't be leisurely. No one feels more urgency about getting this right." (After all, BO needs some time to replace the bold, comprehensive new strategy he announced in March when he appointed Gen. McC.)
The Real Afghan Lessons From Vietnam
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703746604574463024150622310.html?mod=djemITP
Excerpt: More than 30 years have passed since North Vietnam, in gross violation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, conquered South Vietnam. That outcome was partly the result of greatly increased logistical support to the North from its communist backers. It was also the result of America's failure to keep its commitments to the South. Those commitments included promises to maintain a robust level of financial support, to replace combat materiel, and even the use of air power to support the South in case of aggression by the North. That failure was the doing of a U.S. Congress that had tired of the country's long involvement in a war in Southeast Asia and cared nothing for the sacrifices of its own armed forces or those of the South Vietnamese people. Since then, whenever America has entered into other military actions abroad or contemplated such commitments, the specter of Vietnam has been raised. It is entirely appropriate that earlier military experiences be examined for such "lessons learned" as they may yield. But it is equally essential that those prior campaigns be accurately understood before any valid comparisons are made. When it comes to the Vietnam War, much skewed or inaccurate commentary has impeded our understanding of that conflict and its outcome. (I’m reading Sorley’s book, A Better War, but it’s taking me a long time. I read a chapter, get angry and put it aside for a few weeks. The lesson for the world is, don’t bet your life on America’s promises to stand beside you, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Vietnam. Democrats may get control and abandon you to your fate.)
Taliban commander involved in Nuristan attack thought killedhttp://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/taliban_commander_in_1.php#ixzz0TkhqlzXF
Excerpt: A Taliban commander involved in last week's deadly assault on a joint US and Afghan Army outpost is thought to have been killed during an airstrike. Mullah Abdul Rahman Mostaghni and five of his fighters were killed on Oct. 9, according to the governor of Nuristan province and a senior Afghan Army general. The airstrike was carried out just two miles north of the town of Kamdish. Mostaghni was identified by the governor of Nuristan as the Taliban military commander in Kamdish and the neighboring Bargi Matal district, according to Pajhwok Afghan News. Mostaghni was reviled by local Nuristanis for preying on travelers and convoys transiting the Kunar-Nuristan highway. (Payback’s a Medevac, we used to say.)
How to Sell a War: First, Start to Win
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/weekinreview/11bowley.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview
NYT Excerpt: As President Obama recalculates how to fight in Afghanistan, he might bear this in mind: The public has held up an hourglass before every recent wartime president so he can measure its patience. There is only one sure way to stop the sand from running out: Deliver victory, or at least show clear progress toward it. “Public opinion has always been a concern in all of America’s wars, no matter how long or how short, or how noble or how ignoble they were perceived,” said Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University who served on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council. “It is always in play.” Sometimes public opinion can start wars and dictate their speed and course. At other times, wars are forced on a country. But once they are joined, the hunger for progress in battle has to be satisfied.
Weapons jamming
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_afghanistan_weapons_failures
Hey, it does sound like Vietnam!
New Bill Would Raise Rates, Says Insurance Group
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101102207.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Not to worry. BO promised more people will get better care and, except for those pesky rich, we’ll all pay less.
Obama Urged to Intensify Push for Climate Measure
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101102108.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Notice “Global Warming” has morphed into “Climate Change”? Since the climate always changes, they will be right regardless of what happens. Yea! BO will probably get the Nobel Prize for Science next year.
Democrats Unsure, GOP United on Troop Levels
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/11/democrats_unsure_republicans_u.html?wprss=44
Standing up for America is about more than making speeches about how great you are to the Olympic Committee.
U.S. SENATE SEAT: Two could beat Reid, poll finds
http://www.lvrj.com/news/two-could-beat-reid-poll-finds-63955312.html
This would be a message.
Short Term Insurance Problem
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/short-term-uninsurance-the-problem-no-one-is-trying-to-solve/#more-5858
Excerpt: Now for an unwelcome surprise: None of the health reform bills before Congress actually deals with the problem of the short-term uninsured. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that no one is even seriously thinking about it. One of the amazing features of health policy discussions is how often they initially focus on the uninsured before quickly shifting focus to everybody else. By the time solutions are put on the table, the uninsured typically have been long forgotten.
A dangerous secret to the Baucus health bill
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/08/news/economy/baucus_health_care.fortune/?postversion=2009100915
Excerpt: Hidden in the Senate's health-care bill are huge incentives for corporate America to stop covering their workers. If that happens, the deficit could skyrocket.
Cooked books office
http://www.redstate.com/rep_john_shadegg/2009/10/09/cbo-stands-for-cooked-books-office/
Excerpt: Could you make your family budget look good in a ten-year analysis if you counted ten years of income but only seven of expenditures? That’s what the Congressional Budget Office did in their report on Senator Max Baucus’s health care bill.
Disenfranchising Citizens
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/chavez100909.php3
Excerpt: And that's where the Obama administration's plans for the Census become truly worrisome. The White House has made very clear that their intention is to put extra effort in counting illegal immigrants in the next Census. They want to make sure that all 12 million illegal immigrants are counted, a task that's not easy given the desire of most people illegal in the United States to avoid detection. So the Census Bureau is teaming up with community organizations that can reach out to this population. The bureau had contracted with ACORN to be part of the Census count, until that organization came under heavy criticism after two conservative activists videotaped ACORN workers giving tax advice to what they thought were a pimp and a prostitute. So the bureau has dropped plans to use ACORN but will be using other groups, including Hispanic and immigrant advocacy organizations and the Service Employees International Union. The problem, of course, is that there is enormous potential for a census count that includes illegal immigrants to skew the political process. It will mean some congressional districts will include huge numbers of persons who aren't eligible to vote — and whose elected leaders therefore aren't really democratically accountable. It so happens that many of these districts will elect Democrats, since illegal immigrants often settle in poorer neighborhoods, whose legal residents and citizens tend to vote Democratic. So congressional Democrats and the White House are more than happy to see voting power shift to these new rotten boroughs.
Angry Hispanics mull boycotting 2010 census
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/12/hispanics-mull-boycotting-census/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_headlines
Let us encourage these protests.
U.S. Blocks Oil Drilling at 60 Sites in Utah
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/science/earth/09leases.html?_r=4&ref=instapundit
Helping our friends in Saudi Arabia and Iran fund terror attacks on us.
Racial Profiling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVjdqP6Upf4&feature=player_embedded
More Muslim victims.
Site supporting a return to academic freedom
http://www.campusreform.org/
Transsexual in court appeal for breast enlargement
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6271476/Transsexual-in-court-appeal-for-breast-enlargement.html
When health care is a “right.” Doesn’t matter to me, anyway, I’m a leg man and hate breast implants in women, but want to bet in 15 years Obamacare will be paying for this with your tax dollars? Excerpt: The legally aided gender dysphoria sufferer, who has been living as a woman for over 10 years, says breast augmentation is essential to her female identity and emotional well-being and the refusal to give her the op amounts to sex discrimination. Her unique test case against the West Berkire Primary Care Trust (PCT), in which the the Equality and Human Rights Commission will also be playing a part, is now set for hearing at the High Court on October 20.
The Peace (Keepers) Prize
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11friedman.html?em
Fat chance he’d praise our military and enrage his base. Excerpt: All that said, I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony. Here is the speech I hope he will give: “Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all. “But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
The view from Britain
The whole business of a bunch of Scandinavian worthies doling out the profits of a long-gone dynamite maker's fortune has always smacked of the worst sort of self-satisfied plutocratic worthiness. But this takes the biscuit. President Obama remains the barely man of world politics, barely a senator now barely a president, yet in the land of the Euro-weenies (copyright PJ O'Rourke) the great and the good remain in his thrall. To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let's face it, is an already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992? Ha!). That's not the point. What this does is accelerate the elevation of President Obama to a comedy confection, which he does not deserve, and gives his critics yet another bat to whack him with. Shame on the Norwegians. --London's Daily Telegraph chief political commentator Benedict Brogan. The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
Prize Fools
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6868838.ece
London Times excerpt: When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the satirist Tom Lehrer remarked that he saw no further need to perform as the award had made satire obsolete. By offering the world’s most prestigious political accolade to Barack Obama, a man who has held office for barely nine months, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is in danger of putting the entire comedy industry out of business. The committee has put hope above results, promise above achievement. The prize undermines the selfless triumphs of earlier winners. Indeed, the award’s obvious political intent looks partisan, a signal of European relief at the end of the Bush presidency.
London Times letters to the editor
Sir, After President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, I confidently expect to win next year's literature award for the books I intend one day to write. --The Rev.Dr. J.E.Roulston, Edinburgh
Sir, What is there left to give him when he actually manages to achieve something. --Geoff Watson, Bristol
Double Standard
A pattern has emerged. Liberal citizens and politicians during the Bush years were permitted to speak out against the Iraq war, root for an American defeat, and cheer with the news of each dead American, and they were labeled patriots. An American speaks out against Obama's socialist policies and he is labeled anti-American. A liberal is able to chant anti-Bush slogans and compare him to Hitler and he is exercising his right to free speech. An American questions Obama's judgment both domestically and on the international stage and he is called a racist. I have attempted to point out to liberal friends and family that if they simply took the vast majority of offensive statements, policies, or actions of Obama over the past nine months and imagined them emanating from Bush, they would see the hypocrisy in their stance -- to no avail. They are content to sit back and watch this administration gut the Constitution, usurp power wherever it can find it, ignore the intent of the founders of this country and the successes of the free market economy which helped lead us to the position of the only world's superpower. But they will wake up in a few years to find that their children are not safe from harm's way, their grandchildren will be working off the enormous debt incurred by this government and will never achieve the economic success of their grandparents, and when they need medical care, they will be waiting in line like the Europeans and Canadians who used to turn to the US in times of emergency. Yet they will have their civil rights, for as long as Bush is not the one authorizing the wiretapping of their cell phones, all is good. Another bottle of champagne anyone? --columnist Lauri Regan. The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
Philippines: Jihad against 78-year-old Irish priests
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/philippines-jihad-against-78-year-old-irish-priests.html
Excerpt: Mindanao Jihad Update. Under Sharia law, non-Muslims may not propagate their religions. Since the imposition of Islamic law is the aim of these jihadists, and of all jihadists, this elderly priest became a target for abduction. "Irish priest seized in Mindanao," from BBC News.
Turkey unilaterally excludes Israel from NATO-sponsored military exercise
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/turkey-unilaterally-excludes-israel-from-nato-sponsored-military-exercise.html
Excerpt: ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- Turkey excluded Israel from a planned NATO military exercise partly because of Turkey's criticism of Israel's Gaza offensive nearly a year ago, Turkey's foreign minister told CNN on Sunday. The Turkish government decided to change the list of participating countries and exclude Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. As a result, the NATO exercise was effectively scrapped, although a U.S. embassy representative said it was only postponed.
Another poem in Horowitz’s Blog
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/12/lunch-break-42/
Steep Losses Pose Crisis for Pensions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101002360.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The financial crisis has blown a hole in the rosy forecasts of pension funds that cover teachers, police officers and other government employees, casting into doubt as never before whether these public systems will be able to keep their promises to future generations of retirees. (But see the next item.)
Dems Push to Expand CRA
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTYwNGU0MjRmMTRlMjQ0MTI4ZjVlNzFmZGRkYWJlNzk=
Let’s see if we can’t create even a bigger economic meltdown! I’ve read that Bank of America took 29% losses in the $750B it was required to lend to poor people under the CRA. Excerpt: A number of experts believe that aggressive enforcement of the 1970s-era Community Reinvestment Act contributed to the mortgage meltdown, and thus to the greater financial crisis, by requiring financial institutions to lend to unqualified borrowers. Now, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is responding to that situation by proposing to expand the scope and power of the Community Reinvestment Act. This morning House Financial Services Committee chairman Rep. Barney Frank held a hearing on H.R. 1479, the "Community Reinvestment Modernization Act of 2009." The bill's purpose is "to close the wealth gap in the United States" by increasing "home ownership and small business ownership for low- and moderate-income borrowers and persons of color." It would extend CRA's strict lending requirements to non-bank institutions like credit unions, insurance companies, and mortgage lenders. It would also make CRA more explicitly race-based by requiring CRA standards to be applied to minorities, regardless of income, going beyond earlier requirements that applied solely to low- and moderate-income areas.
Now the 'Loyal Opposition,' McCain Keeps Pressure on Obama
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101001346.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: "I said I don't think we should have a leisurely process," McCain recalled. The president did not respond immediately, but when he was wrapping up the meeting, he came back to what McCain had said. According to several people in the room, Obama said, "John, this won't be leisurely. No one feels more urgency about getting this right." (After all, BO needs some time to replace the bold, comprehensive new strategy he announced in March when he appointed Gen. McC.)
The Real Afghan Lessons From Vietnam
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703746604574463024150622310.html?mod=djemITP
Excerpt: More than 30 years have passed since North Vietnam, in gross violation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, conquered South Vietnam. That outcome was partly the result of greatly increased logistical support to the North from its communist backers. It was also the result of America's failure to keep its commitments to the South. Those commitments included promises to maintain a robust level of financial support, to replace combat materiel, and even the use of air power to support the South in case of aggression by the North. That failure was the doing of a U.S. Congress that had tired of the country's long involvement in a war in Southeast Asia and cared nothing for the sacrifices of its own armed forces or those of the South Vietnamese people. Since then, whenever America has entered into other military actions abroad or contemplated such commitments, the specter of Vietnam has been raised. It is entirely appropriate that earlier military experiences be examined for such "lessons learned" as they may yield. But it is equally essential that those prior campaigns be accurately understood before any valid comparisons are made. When it comes to the Vietnam War, much skewed or inaccurate commentary has impeded our understanding of that conflict and its outcome. (I’m reading Sorley’s book, A Better War, but it’s taking me a long time. I read a chapter, get angry and put it aside for a few weeks. The lesson for the world is, don’t bet your life on America’s promises to stand beside you, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Vietnam. Democrats may get control and abandon you to your fate.)
Taliban commander involved in Nuristan attack thought killedhttp://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/taliban_commander_in_1.php#ixzz0TkhqlzXF
Excerpt: A Taliban commander involved in last week's deadly assault on a joint US and Afghan Army outpost is thought to have been killed during an airstrike. Mullah Abdul Rahman Mostaghni and five of his fighters were killed on Oct. 9, according to the governor of Nuristan province and a senior Afghan Army general. The airstrike was carried out just two miles north of the town of Kamdish. Mostaghni was identified by the governor of Nuristan as the Taliban military commander in Kamdish and the neighboring Bargi Matal district, according to Pajhwok Afghan News. Mostaghni was reviled by local Nuristanis for preying on travelers and convoys transiting the Kunar-Nuristan highway. (Payback’s a Medevac, we used to say.)
How to Sell a War: First, Start to Win
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/weekinreview/11bowley.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview
NYT Excerpt: As President Obama recalculates how to fight in Afghanistan, he might bear this in mind: The public has held up an hourglass before every recent wartime president so he can measure its patience. There is only one sure way to stop the sand from running out: Deliver victory, or at least show clear progress toward it. “Public opinion has always been a concern in all of America’s wars, no matter how long or how short, or how noble or how ignoble they were perceived,” said Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University who served on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council. “It is always in play.” Sometimes public opinion can start wars and dictate their speed and course. At other times, wars are forced on a country. But once they are joined, the hunger for progress in battle has to be satisfied.
Weapons jamming
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_afghanistan_weapons_failures
Hey, it does sound like Vietnam!
New Bill Would Raise Rates, Says Insurance Group
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101102207.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Not to worry. BO promised more people will get better care and, except for those pesky rich, we’ll all pay less.
Obama Urged to Intensify Push for Climate Measure
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101102108.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Notice “Global Warming” has morphed into “Climate Change”? Since the climate always changes, they will be right regardless of what happens. Yea! BO will probably get the Nobel Prize for Science next year.
Democrats Unsure, GOP United on Troop Levels
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/11/democrats_unsure_republicans_u.html?wprss=44
Standing up for America is about more than making speeches about how great you are to the Olympic Committee.
U.S. SENATE SEAT: Two could beat Reid, poll finds
http://www.lvrj.com/news/two-could-beat-reid-poll-finds-63955312.html
This would be a message.
Short Term Insurance Problem
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/short-term-uninsurance-the-problem-no-one-is-trying-to-solve/#more-5858
Excerpt: Now for an unwelcome surprise: None of the health reform bills before Congress actually deals with the problem of the short-term uninsured. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that no one is even seriously thinking about it. One of the amazing features of health policy discussions is how often they initially focus on the uninsured before quickly shifting focus to everybody else. By the time solutions are put on the table, the uninsured typically have been long forgotten.
A dangerous secret to the Baucus health bill
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/08/news/economy/baucus_health_care.fortune/?postversion=2009100915
Excerpt: Hidden in the Senate's health-care bill are huge incentives for corporate America to stop covering their workers. If that happens, the deficit could skyrocket.
Cooked books office
http://www.redstate.com/rep_john_shadegg/2009/10/09/cbo-stands-for-cooked-books-office/
Excerpt: Could you make your family budget look good in a ten-year analysis if you counted ten years of income but only seven of expenditures? That’s what the Congressional Budget Office did in their report on Senator Max Baucus’s health care bill.
Disenfranchising Citizens
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/chavez100909.php3
Excerpt: And that's where the Obama administration's plans for the Census become truly worrisome. The White House has made very clear that their intention is to put extra effort in counting illegal immigrants in the next Census. They want to make sure that all 12 million illegal immigrants are counted, a task that's not easy given the desire of most people illegal in the United States to avoid detection. So the Census Bureau is teaming up with community organizations that can reach out to this population. The bureau had contracted with ACORN to be part of the Census count, until that organization came under heavy criticism after two conservative activists videotaped ACORN workers giving tax advice to what they thought were a pimp and a prostitute. So the bureau has dropped plans to use ACORN but will be using other groups, including Hispanic and immigrant advocacy organizations and the Service Employees International Union. The problem, of course, is that there is enormous potential for a census count that includes illegal immigrants to skew the political process. It will mean some congressional districts will include huge numbers of persons who aren't eligible to vote — and whose elected leaders therefore aren't really democratically accountable. It so happens that many of these districts will elect Democrats, since illegal immigrants often settle in poorer neighborhoods, whose legal residents and citizens tend to vote Democratic. So congressional Democrats and the White House are more than happy to see voting power shift to these new rotten boroughs.
Angry Hispanics mull boycotting 2010 census
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/12/hispanics-mull-boycotting-census/?source=newsletter_must-read-stories-today_headlines
Let us encourage these protests.
U.S. Blocks Oil Drilling at 60 Sites in Utah
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/science/earth/09leases.html?_r=4&ref=instapundit
Helping our friends in Saudi Arabia and Iran fund terror attacks on us.
Racial Profiling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVjdqP6Upf4&feature=player_embedded
More Muslim victims.
Site supporting a return to academic freedom
http://www.campusreform.org/
Transsexual in court appeal for breast enlargement
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6271476/Transsexual-in-court-appeal-for-breast-enlargement.html
When health care is a “right.” Doesn’t matter to me, anyway, I’m a leg man and hate breast implants in women, but want to bet in 15 years Obamacare will be paying for this with your tax dollars? Excerpt: The legally aided gender dysphoria sufferer, who has been living as a woman for over 10 years, says breast augmentation is essential to her female identity and emotional well-being and the refusal to give her the op amounts to sex discrimination. Her unique test case against the West Berkire Primary Care Trust (PCT), in which the the Equality and Human Rights Commission will also be playing a part, is now set for hearing at the High Court on October 20.
The Peace (Keepers) Prize
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11friedman.html?em
Fat chance he’d praise our military and enrage his base. Excerpt: All that said, I hope Mr. Obama will take this instinct a step further when he travels to Oslo on Dec. 10 for the peace prize ceremony. Here is the speech I hope he will give: “Let me begin by thanking the Nobel committee for awarding me this prize, the highest award to which any statesman can aspire. As I said on the day it was announced, ‘I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.’ Therefore, upon reflection, I cannot accept this award on my behalf at all. “But I will accept it on behalf of the most important peacekeepers in the world for the last century — the men and women of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
The view from Britain
The whole business of a bunch of Scandinavian worthies doling out the profits of a long-gone dynamite maker's fortune has always smacked of the worst sort of self-satisfied plutocratic worthiness. But this takes the biscuit. President Obama remains the barely man of world politics, barely a senator now barely a president, yet in the land of the Euro-weenies (copyright PJ O'Rourke) the great and the good remain in his thrall. To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let's face it, is an already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992? Ha!). That's not the point. What this does is accelerate the elevation of President Obama to a comedy confection, which he does not deserve, and gives his critics yet another bat to whack him with. Shame on the Norwegians. --London's Daily Telegraph chief political commentator Benedict Brogan. The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
Prize Fools
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6868838.ece
London Times excerpt: When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the satirist Tom Lehrer remarked that he saw no further need to perform as the award had made satire obsolete. By offering the world’s most prestigious political accolade to Barack Obama, a man who has held office for barely nine months, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is in danger of putting the entire comedy industry out of business. The committee has put hope above results, promise above achievement. The prize undermines the selfless triumphs of earlier winners. Indeed, the award’s obvious political intent looks partisan, a signal of European relief at the end of the Bush presidency.
London Times letters to the editor
Sir, After President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, I confidently expect to win next year's literature award for the books I intend one day to write. --The Rev.Dr. J.E.Roulston, Edinburgh
Sir, What is there left to give him when he actually manages to achieve something. --Geoff Watson, Bristol
Double Standard
A pattern has emerged. Liberal citizens and politicians during the Bush years were permitted to speak out against the Iraq war, root for an American defeat, and cheer with the news of each dead American, and they were labeled patriots. An American speaks out against Obama's socialist policies and he is labeled anti-American. A liberal is able to chant anti-Bush slogans and compare him to Hitler and he is exercising his right to free speech. An American questions Obama's judgment both domestically and on the international stage and he is called a racist. I have attempted to point out to liberal friends and family that if they simply took the vast majority of offensive statements, policies, or actions of Obama over the past nine months and imagined them emanating from Bush, they would see the hypocrisy in their stance -- to no avail. They are content to sit back and watch this administration gut the Constitution, usurp power wherever it can find it, ignore the intent of the founders of this country and the successes of the free market economy which helped lead us to the position of the only world's superpower. But they will wake up in a few years to find that their children are not safe from harm's way, their grandchildren will be working off the enormous debt incurred by this government and will never achieve the economic success of their grandparents, and when they need medical care, they will be waiting in line like the Europeans and Canadians who used to turn to the US in times of emergency. Yet they will have their civil rights, for as long as Bush is not the one authorizing the wiretapping of their cell phones, all is good. Another bottle of champagne anyone? --columnist Lauri Regan. The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
Philippines: Jihad against 78-year-old Irish priests
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/philippines-jihad-against-78-year-old-irish-priests.html
Excerpt: Mindanao Jihad Update. Under Sharia law, non-Muslims may not propagate their religions. Since the imposition of Islamic law is the aim of these jihadists, and of all jihadists, this elderly priest became a target for abduction. "Irish priest seized in Mindanao," from BBC News.
Turkey unilaterally excludes Israel from NATO-sponsored military exercise
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/turkey-unilaterally-excludes-israel-from-nato-sponsored-military-exercise.html
Excerpt: ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) -- Turkey excluded Israel from a planned NATO military exercise partly because of Turkey's criticism of Israel's Gaza offensive nearly a year ago, Turkey's foreign minister told CNN on Sunday. The Turkish government decided to change the list of participating countries and exclude Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. As a result, the NATO exercise was effectively scrapped, although a U.S. embassy representative said it was only postponed.
Political Digest October 12, 2009
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
It's a 12-day miracle! Praise Obama and pass the Hopium
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-11-oct11,0,6621520.column
Chicago Tribune’s John Kass at his funniest.
Marek Edelman, the man who wouldn't let the light dim
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1254827721470&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
The type of man who, in a just world, would be winning prizes. But he was a leftist who fought tyranny, rather than acquiesce to it, so I guess a Peace Prize was out.
Honor the flag
http://www.kokomoperspective.com/image_5fd6238a-b225-11de-80dc-001cc4c002e0.html
Obama's Intimates and Advisors
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/ship_of_fools_obamas_intimates.html
Unflattering profiles of “all the president’s people.”
Mayo unit no longer to accept Medicare
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2009/10/09/20091009biz-mayoclinic1009.html
Excerpt: Hospital officials called the new policy a "two-year pilot program" and said Thursday that the changes are necessary because of low Medicare reimbursement rates.
Organizers Cut Microphone As Filmmaker Presses Al Gore Over ‘Errors’
http://www.breitbart.tv/organizers-cut-microphone-as-filmmaker-presses-al-gore-over-errors/
Typical.
If you laugh at Obama’s Nobel, you side with terrorists
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/09/dnc-if-you-laugh-at-obamas-nobel-you-side-with-terrorists/
Excerpt: “The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse told POLITICO. “Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize - an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride - unless of course you are the Republican Party.
SNL sides with the terrorists, mocks ObamaPrize
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/saturday-night-live-mocks-obama-winning.html
Excerpt: Obama: "I won the Nobel for not being George Bush."
Man Slated to be Obama’s Top Immigration Agent Investigated for Embezzlement
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/10128/exclusive-man-slated-to-be-obamas-top-immigration-agent-investigated-for-embezzlement/#comments
Should fit perfectly with this administration.
Anger Management Hits a Hump
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/10/11/anger_management_hits_a_hump
Very funny read. Excerpt: Consider nature. Not the placid nature that Constable painted, but nature as Tennyson saw it, "red in tooth and claw." To glimpse a state of nature as Hobbes imagined it, where human life is "nasty, brutish and short," visit the Whole Foods store on River Road in Bethesda, Md. There, and -- let the political profiling begin -- probably at many Whole Food stores and other magnets for liberals, nationwide, you will see proof of this social equation: Four Priuses plus three parking spaces equal angry anarchy.
Stunning: Despite Plot, NYC's Terror Funds Slashed
http://wcbstv.com/local/nyc.terror.funding.2.1236540.html
Why not? BO got the ObamaPrize for ending the War on Terror, right? So why would NY need money?
Muslim Congressman Ellison's trip to Mecca cost $13,350 -- paid for by the Muslim Brotherhood
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/muslim-congressman-ellisons-trip-to-mecca-cost-13350----paid-for-by-the-muslim-brotherhood.html
Excerpt: The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991. What does that have to do with Congressman Ellison? Everything. The Muslim American Society paid for his Hajj. And what is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood. (What used to be called “suicide” we now call “multiculturalism.”)
A casualty of callousness
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/08/a_casualty_of_callousness/
Excerpt: This is all well and good, but it does beg the question: Why is Larry Hutchins still in prison? Hutchins is from Plymouth. His father, Lawrence G. Hutchins Jr., was a Marine, and his grandfather, Lawrence G. Hutchins Sr., was a Marine, and all Lawrence G. Hutchins III wanted was to be a Marine. He signed up at 17 but had to wait until he got out of Plymouth High to go to boot camp. He was sent to Iraq and saw some bad things. His platoon was ambushed one day and he called in an airstrike. The bomb hit the wrong house, and when Sergeant Larry Hutchins ran to the rubble, he saw dead women and children. The insurgents who ambushed them that day kept ambushing them, killing Marines, and as soon as his platoon arrested a suspected insurgent, someone with a higher rank released them. Three years ago, Hutchins’s unit abducted a man named Hashim Awad in a small village in Anbar Province, and, in a moment of madness or frustration or both, Hutchins shot him in the head.
How a Public Health Plan Undercuts Consumer Choice
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/upload/special_public_health_plan_comparison.pdf
Obama’s War, Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37rCQwjeiY
Worth viewing. Marines in Afghanistan.
Comparing penalties
http://www.jumbojoke.com/illegal_border_crossings_compared.html
Funny, but too true.
It's a 12-day miracle! Praise Obama and pass the Hopium
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-11-oct11,0,6621520.column
Chicago Tribune’s John Kass at his funniest.
Marek Edelman, the man who wouldn't let the light dim
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1254827721470&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
The type of man who, in a just world, would be winning prizes. But he was a leftist who fought tyranny, rather than acquiesce to it, so I guess a Peace Prize was out.
Honor the flag
http://www.kokomoperspective.com/image_5fd6238a-b225-11de-80dc-001cc4c002e0.html
Obama's Intimates and Advisors
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/ship_of_fools_obamas_intimates.html
Unflattering profiles of “all the president’s people.”
Mayo unit no longer to accept Medicare
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2009/10/09/20091009biz-mayoclinic1009.html
Excerpt: Hospital officials called the new policy a "two-year pilot program" and said Thursday that the changes are necessary because of low Medicare reimbursement rates.
Organizers Cut Microphone As Filmmaker Presses Al Gore Over ‘Errors’
http://www.breitbart.tv/organizers-cut-microphone-as-filmmaker-presses-al-gore-over-errors/
Typical.
If you laugh at Obama’s Nobel, you side with terrorists
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/09/dnc-if-you-laugh-at-obamas-nobel-you-side-with-terrorists/
Excerpt: “The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse told POLITICO. “Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize - an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride - unless of course you are the Republican Party.
SNL sides with the terrorists, mocks ObamaPrize
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/saturday-night-live-mocks-obama-winning.html
Excerpt: Obama: "I won the Nobel for not being George Bush."
Man Slated to be Obama’s Top Immigration Agent Investigated for Embezzlement
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/10128/exclusive-man-slated-to-be-obamas-top-immigration-agent-investigated-for-embezzlement/#comments
Should fit perfectly with this administration.
Anger Management Hits a Hump
http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2009/10/11/anger_management_hits_a_hump
Very funny read. Excerpt: Consider nature. Not the placid nature that Constable painted, but nature as Tennyson saw it, "red in tooth and claw." To glimpse a state of nature as Hobbes imagined it, where human life is "nasty, brutish and short," visit the Whole Foods store on River Road in Bethesda, Md. There, and -- let the political profiling begin -- probably at many Whole Food stores and other magnets for liberals, nationwide, you will see proof of this social equation: Four Priuses plus three parking spaces equal angry anarchy.
Stunning: Despite Plot, NYC's Terror Funds Slashed
http://wcbstv.com/local/nyc.terror.funding.2.1236540.html
Why not? BO got the ObamaPrize for ending the War on Terror, right? So why would NY need money?
Muslim Congressman Ellison's trip to Mecca cost $13,350 -- paid for by the Muslim Brotherhood
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/muslim-congressman-ellisons-trip-to-mecca-cost-13350----paid-for-by-the-muslim-brotherhood.html
Excerpt: The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991. What does that have to do with Congressman Ellison? Everything. The Muslim American Society paid for his Hajj. And what is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood. (What used to be called “suicide” we now call “multiculturalism.”)
A casualty of callousness
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/08/a_casualty_of_callousness/
Excerpt: This is all well and good, but it does beg the question: Why is Larry Hutchins still in prison? Hutchins is from Plymouth. His father, Lawrence G. Hutchins Jr., was a Marine, and his grandfather, Lawrence G. Hutchins Sr., was a Marine, and all Lawrence G. Hutchins III wanted was to be a Marine. He signed up at 17 but had to wait until he got out of Plymouth High to go to boot camp. He was sent to Iraq and saw some bad things. His platoon was ambushed one day and he called in an airstrike. The bomb hit the wrong house, and when Sergeant Larry Hutchins ran to the rubble, he saw dead women and children. The insurgents who ambushed them that day kept ambushing them, killing Marines, and as soon as his platoon arrested a suspected insurgent, someone with a higher rank released them. Three years ago, Hutchins’s unit abducted a man named Hashim Awad in a small village in Anbar Province, and, in a moment of madness or frustration or both, Hutchins shot him in the head.
How a Public Health Plan Undercuts Consumer Choice
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/upload/special_public_health_plan_comparison.pdf
Obama’s War, Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N37rCQwjeiY
Worth viewing. Marines in Afghanistan.
Comparing penalties
http://www.jumbojoke.com/illegal_border_crossings_compared.html
Funny, but too true.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Political Digest October 11, 2009
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
Don’t forget to vote daily to help Obama win the Heisman Trophy!
http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/
In the "Type your nominee here!" field, enter "Barack Obama."
Who’s the decider?
http://www.galganov.com/editorials.asp?id=1166
Excerpt: Nine months into the Presidency of Lord Obama who is surrounded by everyone who seems to be in charge including the outsiders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, to the insiders Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and Valerie Jarrett. Ask anyone of them who’s in charge, and they’ll all tell you that Obama is the President, but in their own minds they believe that each one of them is in charge.
German official insults Arabs and Turks
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091007/FOREIGN/710069877/1013
Excerpt: A top German central bank official has caused outrage by saying Turkish and Arab immigrants sponge off the state, are incapable of integrating themselves into German society and “constantly produce little girls with headscarves”. (Outrageous—picking on little girls because they were born into a misogynist culture that makes them wear the hijab!)
Brit view of Saudi Arabia
http://dotsub.com/view/84f5c72d-b0ba-408c-ace3-8cc40995e011
Too funny, but right on point.
Democracy: The joke is on us
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Democracy_--The-joke-is-on-us-8361547-63794432.html
Excerpt: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bill that emerged on Sept. 17 had actually been voted on by the committee two months earlier. For two months, the Democrats who control the committee refused to let anyone read the bill, not members of the committee, not other Senators, not the American people. Now we know why. While they held the bill hostage, unelected HELP committee staff made over 70 changes to it. No votes were held as substantive parts of the bill were changed or eliminated.
Doctors for Obama, er, America
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2556
Who the docs getting the photo-op white coats were.
What I Heard in Honduras
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html
I thought BO promised America wouldn’t meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. I suppose he meant countries like Iran and N. Korea which threaten us. Meddling in behalf of socialists is fine. Or maybe BO fines a constitutional limit on presidential terms troubling. Excerpt: After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration's policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras. That policy was set in a snap decision the day Mr. Zelaya was removed from office, without a full assessment of either the facts or reliable legal analysis of the constitutional provisions at issue. Three months later, it remains in force, despite mounting evidence of its moral and legal incoherence. While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya's abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted. As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on. The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras's one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya's removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya's former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.
Holder's Witch Hunt
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33853
Excerpt: Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute CIA personnel is an outrageous act of political theater that has the potential to significantly damage our nation’s long-term intelligence gathering capabilities. Despite the Administration’s subtle attempts to distance itself from the Justice Department’s investigation, anyone in touch with reality knows that the Attorney General could not pursue this destructive end without the President’s unmitigated support. President Obama has turned a deaf ear to the pleas of seven former CIA directors while using Mr. Holder to oblige the left’s political base. Mr. Holder has a clear history of putting the President’s agenda ahead of the law and the interests of the American people. As Deputy and then Acting Attorney General during the Clinton Administration, Mr. Holder was intimately involved in the controversial pardons issued by President Clinton hours before he left office, particularly the highly controversial pardons of fugitive tax evader Marc Rich and a number of FALN terrorists. In the Rich pardon case, Mr. Holder simply shielded career Justice Department lawyers from any knowledge of the situation so as to preempt any objection from his colleagues. Before paving the way for President Clinton to commute the FALN terrorists’ sentences, Mr. Holder ignored two warnings that such an action would undermine four pending Federal investigations. Mr. Holder’s actions in the Rich and FALN matters do not appear to have been the product of naïveté or misjudgment. Rather, they appear to have been the actions of a man who bent to the prevailing political winds and put aside good judgment in favor of performing personal favors for a President.
Our Laureate: Neda of Iran
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100903860.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
Washington Post: We understand how much Scandinavians and other Europeans welcomed the end of the Bush administration; in that sense, Mr. Obama's prize confirms that his ascension to the presidency has improved America's image in the world, or at least parts of it. But in offering this latest Euro-celebration of the 2008 election, the Norwegian committee has also demonstrated a certain cluelessness about America. If anything animates Mr. Obama's critics in this country, it is the impression that he is the focus of a global cult of personality. This prize, at this time, only feeds that impression, and thus does him no favors politically. The Nobel Committee's decision is especially puzzling given that a better alternative was readily apparent. This year, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in Iran braved ferocious official violence to demand their right to vote and to speak freely. Dozens were killed, thousands imprisoned. One of those killed was a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan; her shooting by thugs working for the Islamist theocracy, captured on video, moved the world. A posthumous award for Neda, as the avatar of a democratic movement in Iran, would have recognized the sacrifices that movement has made and encouraged its struggle in a dark hour. Democracy in Iran would not only set a people free, it would also dramatically improve the chances for world peace, since the regime that murdered her is pursuing nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6867711.ece
London Times Excerpt: Mr Obama’s prize is more likely, however, to be compared with the most contentious prize of all: the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for their negotiations to end the Vietnam war. Dr Kissinger was branded a warmonger for his support for the bombing campaign in Cambodia; and the Vietnamese negotiator was subsequently seen as a liar whose government never intended to honour a peace deal but was waiting for the moment to attack South Vietnam. Mr Obama becomes the third sitting US President to receive the prize. The committee said today that he had “captured the world’s attention”. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished
Barack Obama Wins Yasser Arafat Peace Prize
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/10/barack_obama_wi.html
Excerpt: As a bonus, let's consider who the Nobel Committee considered less worthy than Barack Hussein Obama to receive to Nobel Peace Prize: Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. -- not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.) Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years - not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.
Nobel's Stockholm Syndrome
http://townhall.com/columnists/JerryBowyer/2009/10/09/nobels_stockholm_syndrome
Interesting history of how the prize came about. Excerpt: But the prize has been used as a weapon, too. A Nobel to Carter, a Nobel to Gore, a Nobel to Obama. It appears that the parliament of Norway does not like George W. Bush very much. Carter was given a prize for negotiating a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with North Korea that was violated almost immediately. Gore's came just before his global warming hypothesis began to unravel among serious scientists and practically anyone else with a thermometer. Obama got one, well, just for being Obama. Or, more to the point, for not being Bush. And let's not forget Arafat. Alfred Nobel tried to buy atonement from the intellectual world for the 'sin' of creating an explosive. But in 1994, in its finite wisdom, the Nobel committee bestowed his prize on the greatest recruiter of suicide bombers in history.
Paris-based writer Nidra Poller explains why the President is a perfect recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize -- notably for his betrayal of Israel and aid to the global jihad
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/yes-virginia-barack-hussein-obama-deserves-his-nobel-peace-prize.html
Excerpt: Surprised? Shocked? Outraged? Not me. I'm delighted to see that the Nobel-Peace-Prize has been awarded to the person who most richly deserves it. Not only has he made gigantic efforts to promote Nobel-Peace in his nine short months in office but as president of the residually powerful United States of America he has the superforce to impose Nobel-style peace. President and Nobel Prince of Peace Obama is not naïve, inept, inexperienced, or wet behind the ears. He is practicing what he preached. He has already fulfilled more promises than most voters ever suspected were being made. And the way things are going, only a miracle will keep him from delivering on the rest. Bat Ye'or teaches us the meaning of peace in our times, the peace of dhimmitude, the peace that Nobel Norwegians have dutifully honored. It is the peace of convert or die...or hang in by the skin of your teeth. When the heads have been severed from the stiff necks that refuse Islam, when the converted have been folded into the prostrate masses of the ummah, the dhimmis hand over the keys to their granges, their wives and children, their hearts and minds, their lands and dwellings in exchange for a fragile peace requiring endless sacrifice and constant restraint. This is the peace of dhimmitude, this is the peace Nobelly rewarded in...uhhh...Oslo, right? And B Hussein O is the most deserving laureate. On the very day the prize was announced, forty people were killed in a jihad attack in Peshawar Pakistan. Do you remember, way back when, during the campaign, he narrowed his eyes and said Iraq's a distraction, let me get my hands on the trigger and I'll take care of Pakistan. There you have it. A promise keeper of the first order. Iraq was also a distraction from Afghanistan. So mister Taliban tally your bananas, we've got other fish to fry, do your jihad thing and we'll lower our eyes, peace be upon you.
Fidel Castro lauds Nobel prize for Obama
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20091010/NEWS-US-NOBEL-PEACE-OBAMA-CASTRO/
Of course. The Kennedys tried to kill him. But BO loves leftwing dictators.
Half-Speed Ahead and Unsteady as She Goes
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/10/10/half-speed_ahead_and_unsteady_as_she_goes
Excerpt: What do you think it's like just now to be a GI somewhere at the end of the earth, say in mountainous Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan, and see the latest video of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid addressing the press outside the White House, just having left still another strategy session on this endless war?... Barack Obama had sounded so determined to win that war -- his war, the one he called the right war -- when he took the oath of office as president (and commander-in-chief) early this year. How long ago that now seems. You don't hear that kind of talk from the Oval Office these days. Its occupant has fallen silent on the subject of Afghanistan. Even while everyone around him talks, talks, talks. His press secretary says the country has no option but to stay in Afghanistan. The isolationists, whom we will always have with us, say the only realistic option is to leave. The word is that the president is now undecided about how decided to be about this war. But the Taliban are decided. That much is clear with every casualty report.
Obamacomedy
http://townhall.com/columnists/DanKennedy/2009/10/10/obamacomedy
Excerpt: What’s hilarious is his omitting any mention of his own reckless risk-taking, on such an epic scale it makes what went on over on Wall Street seem a penny ante poker game. He, the Reckless-Risk-Taker-In-Chief, lecturing anybody about such sin is sillier than John Edwards giving a speech on family values or Al Gigantic-Carbon-Footprint Gore carping about others’ energy consumption. Let’s see … Ozbama has virtually nationalized the entire mortgage market, killing the private industry and transferring all the risk to taxpayers. He is busily killing the private college lending industry and replacing it with government funded, government run massively expanded, easier to obtain financing – with all the risk moved to taxpayers. As a minor matter, he has also helped himself to controlling ownership of General Motors, AIG, and assorted other businesses, putting hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars at risk. If he gets his way, he will fundamentally transform 1/6th of the U.S. economy having to do with health care. And that – healthcare “reform” – is the riskiest play of all, based entirely on a wager that he can do what government has never, ever done; so curb its own waste and fraud in its current, small socialized medicine program (Medicare) that it can pay for a much bigger, harder to manage socialized medicine program with the savings.
Vote Fraud Criminal Darnell Nash Should Be ACORN’s Poster Boy
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/09/vote-fraud-criminal-darnell-nash-should-be-acorns-poster-boy/
Excerpt: That’s because Darnell Nash (his mug shot appears above) was recently convicted of vote fraud in addition to the lesser crime of voter-registration fraud. Who is Darnell Nash? He’s a Cleveland-based, cross-dressing male escort whom ACORN registered multiple times to vote. No evidence of criminal activity by ACORN with regard to the Nash case has been discovered — yet. ACORN remains under investigation by the prosecutor’s office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The conviction of Nash, known by various aliases including Serina “Sexy Slay” Gibbs, is incredibly significant for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that ACORN has long maintained that vote fraud, as opposed to the much more common crime of voter-registration fraud, basically never happens.
Human Rights vs. Sharia: Violence Against Women
http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/10/human-rights-vs-sharia-violence-against-women.php
Excerpt: The great irony of the recent International Conference on Violence Against Women hosted by the Italian Ministry for Equal Opportunities, is that if the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by 185 countries, or over 90% of the United Nations, were implemented, there would be no need for this conference. One if the main problems is the distance between laws, international conventions and treaties - and their implementation. In Islamic countries, for example, although 46 out of 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) ratified it, they did so with “reservations.” It seems there are Muslim intellectuals and human rights defenders who are still ambivalent about pursuing engagement with Islam and Islamic law, and gender equality and women’s empowerment in Muslim societies. Even though the 1990 Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, the 1994 Charter on Human Rights, and the 2005 OIC Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam indicate that the relationship between Islam and Human Rights is crucial - - due to the place of Islam and Islamic law in the social, cultural, political, and legal affairs of states’ parties - CEDAW has more “reservations” placed on it than any other Human Rights treaty. States’ parties identified as Islamic have placed “reservations” even broader in scope and ground, maintaining that they will not implement any article against the principles of sharia. The Convention ends up, therefore, as though they had never signed it.
Picture of evil: Bloodthirsty German Al Qaeda fanatic poses with 2ft-long knife for beheading British soldiers in Afghanistan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1219212/Picture-evil-Bloodthirsty-Al-Qaeda-fanatics-2ft-long-knife-beheading-British-soldiers.html#
Another Muslim who didn’t get the Religion of Peace mewmo.
'Al-Qaeda-link' Cern worker held
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8299668.stm
Excerpt: France has arrested a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) for suspected links with al-Qaeda, officials have said. The 32-year-old man of Algerian descent was one of two brothers detained in the south-east town of Vienne on Thursday. Police believe they had been in contact over the internet with people linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and had been planning attacks in France. (Didn’t get the memo.)
Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on Al-Quds Day: 'Israel Must Be Wiped Out Of Existence'
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP259109
But, but, they want peace, right?
Obamacare to ban guns in homes?
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=3959
Excerpt from Gun Owners of America: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners: “Own a gun; lose your coverage!” Baucus’ socialized health care bill comes up for a Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. We have waited and waited and waited for the shifty Baucus to release legislative language. But he has refused to release anything but a summary — and we will never have a Congressional Budget Office cost assessment based on actual legislation. Even the summary was kept secret for a long time.
Don’t forget to vote daily to help Obama win the Heisman Trophy!
http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/
In the "Type your nominee here!" field, enter "Barack Obama."
Who’s the decider?
http://www.galganov.com/editorials.asp?id=1166
Excerpt: Nine months into the Presidency of Lord Obama who is surrounded by everyone who seems to be in charge including the outsiders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, to the insiders Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and Valerie Jarrett. Ask anyone of them who’s in charge, and they’ll all tell you that Obama is the President, but in their own minds they believe that each one of them is in charge.
German official insults Arabs and Turks
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091007/FOREIGN/710069877/1013
Excerpt: A top German central bank official has caused outrage by saying Turkish and Arab immigrants sponge off the state, are incapable of integrating themselves into German society and “constantly produce little girls with headscarves”. (Outrageous—picking on little girls because they were born into a misogynist culture that makes them wear the hijab!)
Brit view of Saudi Arabia
http://dotsub.com/view/84f5c72d-b0ba-408c-ace3-8cc40995e011
Too funny, but right on point.
Democracy: The joke is on us
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Democracy_--The-joke-is-on-us-8361547-63794432.html
Excerpt: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bill that emerged on Sept. 17 had actually been voted on by the committee two months earlier. For two months, the Democrats who control the committee refused to let anyone read the bill, not members of the committee, not other Senators, not the American people. Now we know why. While they held the bill hostage, unelected HELP committee staff made over 70 changes to it. No votes were held as substantive parts of the bill were changed or eliminated.
Doctors for Obama, er, America
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2556
Who the docs getting the photo-op white coats were.
What I Heard in Honduras
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html
I thought BO promised America wouldn’t meddle in the internal affairs of other countries. I suppose he meant countries like Iran and N. Korea which threaten us. Meddling in behalf of socialists is fine. Or maybe BO fines a constitutional limit on presidential terms troubling. Excerpt: After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration's policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras. That policy was set in a snap decision the day Mr. Zelaya was removed from office, without a full assessment of either the facts or reliable legal analysis of the constitutional provisions at issue. Three months later, it remains in force, despite mounting evidence of its moral and legal incoherence. While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya's abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted. As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on. The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras's one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya's removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya's former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.
Holder's Witch Hunt
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33853
Excerpt: Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute CIA personnel is an outrageous act of political theater that has the potential to significantly damage our nation’s long-term intelligence gathering capabilities. Despite the Administration’s subtle attempts to distance itself from the Justice Department’s investigation, anyone in touch with reality knows that the Attorney General could not pursue this destructive end without the President’s unmitigated support. President Obama has turned a deaf ear to the pleas of seven former CIA directors while using Mr. Holder to oblige the left’s political base. Mr. Holder has a clear history of putting the President’s agenda ahead of the law and the interests of the American people. As Deputy and then Acting Attorney General during the Clinton Administration, Mr. Holder was intimately involved in the controversial pardons issued by President Clinton hours before he left office, particularly the highly controversial pardons of fugitive tax evader Marc Rich and a number of FALN terrorists. In the Rich pardon case, Mr. Holder simply shielded career Justice Department lawyers from any knowledge of the situation so as to preempt any objection from his colleagues. Before paving the way for President Clinton to commute the FALN terrorists’ sentences, Mr. Holder ignored two warnings that such an action would undermine four pending Federal investigations. Mr. Holder’s actions in the Rich and FALN matters do not appear to have been the product of naïveté or misjudgment. Rather, they appear to have been the actions of a man who bent to the prevailing political winds and put aside good judgment in favor of performing personal favors for a President.
Our Laureate: Neda of Iran
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100903860.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
Washington Post: We understand how much Scandinavians and other Europeans welcomed the end of the Bush administration; in that sense, Mr. Obama's prize confirms that his ascension to the presidency has improved America's image in the world, or at least parts of it. But in offering this latest Euro-celebration of the 2008 election, the Norwegian committee has also demonstrated a certain cluelessness about America. If anything animates Mr. Obama's critics in this country, it is the impression that he is the focus of a global cult of personality. This prize, at this time, only feeds that impression, and thus does him no favors politically. The Nobel Committee's decision is especially puzzling given that a better alternative was readily apparent. This year, hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in Iran braved ferocious official violence to demand their right to vote and to speak freely. Dozens were killed, thousands imprisoned. One of those killed was a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan; her shooting by thugs working for the Islamist theocracy, captured on video, moved the world. A posthumous award for Neda, as the avatar of a democratic movement in Iran, would have recognized the sacrifices that movement has made and encouraged its struggle in a dark hour. Democracy in Iran would not only set a people free, it would also dramatically improve the chances for world peace, since the regime that murdered her is pursuing nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6867711.ece
London Times Excerpt: Mr Obama’s prize is more likely, however, to be compared with the most contentious prize of all: the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for their negotiations to end the Vietnam war. Dr Kissinger was branded a warmonger for his support for the bombing campaign in Cambodia; and the Vietnamese negotiator was subsequently seen as a liar whose government never intended to honour a peace deal but was waiting for the moment to attack South Vietnam. Mr Obama becomes the third sitting US President to receive the prize. The committee said today that he had “captured the world’s attention”. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished
Barack Obama Wins Yasser Arafat Peace Prize
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/10/barack_obama_wi.html
Excerpt: As a bonus, let's consider who the Nobel Committee considered less worthy than Barack Hussein Obama to receive to Nobel Peace Prize: Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. -- not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.) Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in remote areas of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past 15 years - not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Jordan who risks his life by advocating interfaith dialogue between Jews and Muslims, also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar. She currently leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and serves as the U.N. special envoy to Darfur and is apparently also not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama.
Nobel's Stockholm Syndrome
http://townhall.com/columnists/JerryBowyer/2009/10/09/nobels_stockholm_syndrome
Interesting history of how the prize came about. Excerpt: But the prize has been used as a weapon, too. A Nobel to Carter, a Nobel to Gore, a Nobel to Obama. It appears that the parliament of Norway does not like George W. Bush very much. Carter was given a prize for negotiating a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with North Korea that was violated almost immediately. Gore's came just before his global warming hypothesis began to unravel among serious scientists and practically anyone else with a thermometer. Obama got one, well, just for being Obama. Or, more to the point, for not being Bush. And let's not forget Arafat. Alfred Nobel tried to buy atonement from the intellectual world for the 'sin' of creating an explosive. But in 1994, in its finite wisdom, the Nobel committee bestowed his prize on the greatest recruiter of suicide bombers in history.
Paris-based writer Nidra Poller explains why the President is a perfect recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize -- notably for his betrayal of Israel and aid to the global jihad
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/yes-virginia-barack-hussein-obama-deserves-his-nobel-peace-prize.html
Excerpt: Surprised? Shocked? Outraged? Not me. I'm delighted to see that the Nobel-Peace-Prize has been awarded to the person who most richly deserves it. Not only has he made gigantic efforts to promote Nobel-Peace in his nine short months in office but as president of the residually powerful United States of America he has the superforce to impose Nobel-style peace. President and Nobel Prince of Peace Obama is not naïve, inept, inexperienced, or wet behind the ears. He is practicing what he preached. He has already fulfilled more promises than most voters ever suspected were being made. And the way things are going, only a miracle will keep him from delivering on the rest. Bat Ye'or teaches us the meaning of peace in our times, the peace of dhimmitude, the peace that Nobel Norwegians have dutifully honored. It is the peace of convert or die...or hang in by the skin of your teeth. When the heads have been severed from the stiff necks that refuse Islam, when the converted have been folded into the prostrate masses of the ummah, the dhimmis hand over the keys to their granges, their wives and children, their hearts and minds, their lands and dwellings in exchange for a fragile peace requiring endless sacrifice and constant restraint. This is the peace of dhimmitude, this is the peace Nobelly rewarded in...uhhh...Oslo, right? And B Hussein O is the most deserving laureate. On the very day the prize was announced, forty people were killed in a jihad attack in Peshawar Pakistan. Do you remember, way back when, during the campaign, he narrowed his eyes and said Iraq's a distraction, let me get my hands on the trigger and I'll take care of Pakistan. There you have it. A promise keeper of the first order. Iraq was also a distraction from Afghanistan. So mister Taliban tally your bananas, we've got other fish to fry, do your jihad thing and we'll lower our eyes, peace be upon you.
Fidel Castro lauds Nobel prize for Obama
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20091010/NEWS-US-NOBEL-PEACE-OBAMA-CASTRO/
Of course. The Kennedys tried to kill him. But BO loves leftwing dictators.
Half-Speed Ahead and Unsteady as She Goes
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/10/10/half-speed_ahead_and_unsteady_as_she_goes
Excerpt: What do you think it's like just now to be a GI somewhere at the end of the earth, say in mountainous Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan, and see the latest video of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid addressing the press outside the White House, just having left still another strategy session on this endless war?... Barack Obama had sounded so determined to win that war -- his war, the one he called the right war -- when he took the oath of office as president (and commander-in-chief) early this year. How long ago that now seems. You don't hear that kind of talk from the Oval Office these days. Its occupant has fallen silent on the subject of Afghanistan. Even while everyone around him talks, talks, talks. His press secretary says the country has no option but to stay in Afghanistan. The isolationists, whom we will always have with us, say the only realistic option is to leave. The word is that the president is now undecided about how decided to be about this war. But the Taliban are decided. That much is clear with every casualty report.
Obamacomedy
http://townhall.com/columnists/DanKennedy/2009/10/10/obamacomedy
Excerpt: What’s hilarious is his omitting any mention of his own reckless risk-taking, on such an epic scale it makes what went on over on Wall Street seem a penny ante poker game. He, the Reckless-Risk-Taker-In-Chief, lecturing anybody about such sin is sillier than John Edwards giving a speech on family values or Al Gigantic-Carbon-Footprint Gore carping about others’ energy consumption. Let’s see … Ozbama has virtually nationalized the entire mortgage market, killing the private industry and transferring all the risk to taxpayers. He is busily killing the private college lending industry and replacing it with government funded, government run massively expanded, easier to obtain financing – with all the risk moved to taxpayers. As a minor matter, he has also helped himself to controlling ownership of General Motors, AIG, and assorted other businesses, putting hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars at risk. If he gets his way, he will fundamentally transform 1/6th of the U.S. economy having to do with health care. And that – healthcare “reform” – is the riskiest play of all, based entirely on a wager that he can do what government has never, ever done; so curb its own waste and fraud in its current, small socialized medicine program (Medicare) that it can pay for a much bigger, harder to manage socialized medicine program with the savings.
Vote Fraud Criminal Darnell Nash Should Be ACORN’s Poster Boy
http://newsrealblog.com/2009/10/09/vote-fraud-criminal-darnell-nash-should-be-acorns-poster-boy/
Excerpt: That’s because Darnell Nash (his mug shot appears above) was recently convicted of vote fraud in addition to the lesser crime of voter-registration fraud. Who is Darnell Nash? He’s a Cleveland-based, cross-dressing male escort whom ACORN registered multiple times to vote. No evidence of criminal activity by ACORN with regard to the Nash case has been discovered — yet. ACORN remains under investigation by the prosecutor’s office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The conviction of Nash, known by various aliases including Serina “Sexy Slay” Gibbs, is incredibly significant for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that ACORN has long maintained that vote fraud, as opposed to the much more common crime of voter-registration fraud, basically never happens.
Human Rights vs. Sharia: Violence Against Women
http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/10/human-rights-vs-sharia-violence-against-women.php
Excerpt: The great irony of the recent International Conference on Violence Against Women hosted by the Italian Ministry for Equal Opportunities, is that if the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW), ratified by 185 countries, or over 90% of the United Nations, were implemented, there would be no need for this conference. One if the main problems is the distance between laws, international conventions and treaties - and their implementation. In Islamic countries, for example, although 46 out of 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) ratified it, they did so with “reservations.” It seems there are Muslim intellectuals and human rights defenders who are still ambivalent about pursuing engagement with Islam and Islamic law, and gender equality and women’s empowerment in Muslim societies. Even though the 1990 Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, the 1994 Charter on Human Rights, and the 2005 OIC Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam indicate that the relationship between Islam and Human Rights is crucial - - due to the place of Islam and Islamic law in the social, cultural, political, and legal affairs of states’ parties - CEDAW has more “reservations” placed on it than any other Human Rights treaty. States’ parties identified as Islamic have placed “reservations” even broader in scope and ground, maintaining that they will not implement any article against the principles of sharia. The Convention ends up, therefore, as though they had never signed it.
Picture of evil: Bloodthirsty German Al Qaeda fanatic poses with 2ft-long knife for beheading British soldiers in Afghanistan
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1219212/Picture-evil-Bloodthirsty-Al-Qaeda-fanatics-2ft-long-knife-beheading-British-soldiers.html#
Another Muslim who didn’t get the Religion of Peace mewmo.
'Al-Qaeda-link' Cern worker held
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8299668.stm
Excerpt: France has arrested a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) for suspected links with al-Qaeda, officials have said. The 32-year-old man of Algerian descent was one of two brothers detained in the south-east town of Vienne on Thursday. Police believe they had been in contact over the internet with people linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and had been planning attacks in France. (Didn’t get the memo.)
Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on Al-Quds Day: 'Israel Must Be Wiped Out Of Existence'
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP259109
But, but, they want peace, right?
Obamacare to ban guns in homes?
http://commonamericanjournal.com/?p=3959
Excerpt from Gun Owners of America: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners: “Own a gun; lose your coverage!” Baucus’ socialized health care bill comes up for a Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. We have waited and waited and waited for the shifty Baucus to release legislative language. But he has refused to release anything but a summary — and we will never have a Congressional Budget Office cost assessment based on actual legislation. Even the summary was kept secret for a long time.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Political Digest October 10, 2009
I post articles because I think they are of interest. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with every—or any—opinion in the posted article.
Is my blog OK?
I had a report from a reader that my blog was coming up with text over-laying the first few articles. Doesn’t happen when I log on, so it may be him. Please let me know if you can't read it okay. Thanks. tartanmarine@gmail.com.
Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/09/reaction_obama_wins_nobel_peac.html
Excerpt: A surprising unanimity of opinion is emerging online that the award has been given to Obama prematurely -- and that this both poses a potential danger to his presidency and will serve as a challenge to the credibility of the Nobel-awarding committee in Oslo.At Time magazine, Nancy Gibbs argues, "The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise." Tweets ABC News's Jake Tapper, referring to a controversy earlier in Obama's presidency: "apparently the standards are more exacting for an ASU honorary degree these days." (An Arizona State University spokesperson in April explained a decision to invite the president to give the commencement address without also giving him an honorary degree by saying, "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency." And Tyrants rejoice: “I believe Obama is working hard for peace," said Muhammad Habash, a Syrian member of parliament and director of the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus. "We in Syria believe that Obama's initiative have been suitable, and that Syria is now witnessing important steps to correct the relationship with the United States. I believe everyone here will be very happy for Obama." (Obama joins such Nobel Laureates as Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho, who helped bring the peace of the grave to millions. Barack Hussein Obama, Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm as the little children are taught to chant.)
How to Win the Nobel Peace Prize in 12 Days
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/10/09/tommy-seno-obama-nobel-prize-win/
Excerpt: Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. Over the last decade the only requirement to win the prize was that the nominee had to be critical of George W. Bush (see Al Gore, Mohamed El Baradei and Jimmy Carter). President Obama has broken new ground here. Nominations for potential winners of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ended on February 1. The president took office only 12 days earlier on January 20. Let’s take a look at the president’s first 12 days in the White House according to his public schedule to see what he did to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize:
Nobel runners-up to Obama
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Nobel-runners-up-to-Obama-63847952.html
At least Obama beat out these egotistical connivers! Two runners-up: Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been arrested and beaten for his peaceful political resistance to the brutal dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. But his persistence has brought about small steps toward a free and open Zimbabwean society. The pro-democracy, AIDS and environmental advocacy of Chinese dissident Hu Jia has earned him a three-and-a-half year sentence in Red China's gulag.
Nobel Panel Hopes Peace Prize Boosts Obama Self-Esteem
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=4239
Satire. I think. Excerpt: An unnamed member of the Nobel committee this morning explained the shocking decision to give the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, who had served only 11 days as president when nominated, by noting that the gold medal would go a long way toward boosting Mr. Obama’s self-esteem. “We used to give the award to persons who had actual accomplishments,” the anonymous source said. “But that’s so reactionary, and almost nostalgic. By giving the peace prize to Obama, we’re recognizing his potential, and applauding his intentions in a way that we hope will result in future actions.”
Next: Help Obama win the Heisman Trophy!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Next-help-Obama-win-the-Heisman-63851657.html
Excerpt: I just went to http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/
and, in the "Type your nominee here!" field, entered "Barack Obama." The winner of this Nissan-sponsored promotion will actually receive one official vote for the Heisman award as sort of the people's choice. You can actually go back and vote once each day between now and the Heisman award in December. (yeah, but how do we get the Pope to fast track BO for sainthood?)
After beating video, Daley gets more help from Obama
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-08-oct08,0,1636195.column
Excerpt: The Obama administration may not be much for governing and tough decision-making, but when it comes to symbolism and aiding the mayor of Chicago, it is quite adept. Last week it was Daley's failed push for the 2016 Olympics. This week it's the murders. "This is not a show-and-tell," Daley said, when a reporter wondered whether Wednesday's public relations effort was more dog-and-pony-show than real policy. (John Kass is a Chicago treasure, worth more for the taxpayers than two Olympics.)
A peek at a federal employee’s spam e-mail from Team Obama
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/08/a-peek-at-a-federal-employees-spam-e-mail/
Excerpt: Over the past couple of weeks, we have received several emails (a couple below, two received within a minute of each other) from the Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke, announcing ANOTHER new White House web site. This web site is where employees can make suggestions for how government can save money……ooooh, and win a trip to see Obama!! What a joke after all we have seen since Obama was elected! Too bad the general public cannot submit suggestions.
Poll May Point to Democrats' Worries Beyond Old Dominion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100803288.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The latest Washington Post poll of the Virginia gubernatorial race represents more than bad news for Democratic nominee R. Creigh Deeds. The findings paint a portrait of the electorate that, if replicated elsewhere, stands as a warning sign for President Obama and Democrats who will be running in next year's midterm elections. The poll shows a lack of enthusiasm among many of the voters who propelled Obama and his party to victory last November, raising troubling questions for the Democrats: Were many of Obama's 2008 energetic supporters one-time participants in the political process who care little about other races? Is Obama's current agenda turning off some voters who backed him last year but now might be looking elsewhere? (Barack Hussein Obama, Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm as the little children are taught to chant.)
House ethics committee announces expanded investigation into Rep. Rangel
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/62281-house-ethics-committee-will-announce-an-expanded-investigation-into-rep-rangel
Excerpt: The House ethics committee voted unanimously Thursday to expand the investigation into Rep. Charles Rangel’s (D-N.Y.) alleged financial irregularities. The panel broadened the jurisdiction of its probe to include amendments he made in August to his financial disclosure records showing at least $600,000 in previously unreported assets, according to an ethics committee statement.
Transfer Machine
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2009/10/07/transfer_machine
Excerpt: "The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," George Bernard Shaw once said. For a socialist, Shaw demonstrated good sense with that quotation. Unfortunately, America has become a laboratory in which his hypothesis is being tested. The theory of government I was taught says that government provides benefits, primarily security, to the entire population. In return we pay taxes. But lately the government has been a distributor of special privileges, taking money from some and giving it to others. America is now about evenly split between those who pay income taxes and those who consume them. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center recently disclosed that close to half of all households will pay no income tax this year. Some will pay less than zero that is, they'll get money from those of us who do pay taxes.
Soldier 'Loved Life and Lived It to the Fullest'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100802313.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Like so many of his peers, Nekl Allen felt compelled to serve his country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And joining an ever-increasing number of his fellow soldiers, Allen was buried Thursday morning at Arlington National Cemetery. Staff Sgt. Nekl B. Allen, 29, of Rochester, N.Y., was killed Sept. 12 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, along with Spec. Daniel L. Cox, 23, of Parsons, Kan. Enemy forces attacked their vehicle with a makeshift bomb and small-arms fire, the Defense Department said.
No Compromise on Afghanistan
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33855
Excerpt: Right now, as commander-in-chief, President Obama must lead on Afghanistan, or we risk losing what he has described as the "central front" in our battle against al Qaeda. This past March, the President laid out his mission for the war: “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” And he inserted his top commander to pull it off, General Stanley McChrystal. At this moment, the situation in this fragile region is deteriorating. The insurgency is growing more effective and momentum is not on our side. Deaths of American soldiers are on the rise, and our troops lack the resources to turn the tide. General McChrystal, has recently reported that unless the President provides the full resources of a counter-insurgency strategy and does so quickly, we risk "mission failure" within 12 months. This is a view supported by General David Petraeus, now head of US Central Command.
Young Hamlet's Agony
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=508519
Excerpt: The genius of democracy is the rotation of power that forces the opposition to be serious — particularly about things like war, about which until Jan. 20 of this year Democrats were decidedly unserious. When the Iraq War (which a majority of Senate Democrats voted for) ran into trouble and casualties began to mount, Democrats followed the shifting winds of public opinion and turned decidedly anti-war. But needing political cover because of their post-Vietnam reputation for weakness on national defense, they adopted Afghanistan as their pet war. "I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as 'the right war' to conventional Democratic wisdom," Democratic consultant Bob Shrum wrote after President Obama was elected. "This was accurate as criticism of the Bush administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy." Which is a clever way to say that championing victory in Afghanistan was a contrived and disingenuous policy in which Democrats never seriously believed, a convenient two-by-four with which to bash George Bush over Iraq — while still appearing warlike enough to fend off the soft-on-defense stereotype. Brilliantly crafted and perfectly cynical, the "Iraq War bad, Afghan War good" posture worked. Democrats first won Congress, then the White House. But now, unfortunately, they must govern. No more games. No more pretense. So what does their commander in chief do now with the war he once declared had to be won but had been almost criminally under-resourced by Bush? Perhaps provide the resources to win it? You would think so. And that's exactly what Obama's handpicked commander requested on Aug. 30 — a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops to stabilize a downward spiral and save Afghanistan the way a similar surge saved Iraq. That was more than five weeks ago. Still no response. Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches. Why? Because, explains National Security Adviser James Jones, you don't commit troops before you decide on a strategy. No strategy? On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. And to emphasize his seriousness, the president made clear that he had not arrived casually at this decision. The new strategy, he declared, "marks the conclusion of a careful policy review." (You can fool some of the people all the time, and 54% on election day!)
A month in Helmand: the soldiers' stories
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6852533.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
Excerpt: Beneath the lip of his helmet the colonel’s face had the grey luminosity and glowing eyes of sudden grief. “I’ve just lost one of my best soldiers.” His words, so quiet that they were nearly a whisper, could almost have been a question. The identities of two dead soldiers had come over the radio just minutes earlier. Serjeant Paul McAleese, one of the battalion’s most renowned soldiers, had been so recently alive that his death warranted more than a degree of incredulity. “Shit day,” the colonel added. “Two KIA [Killed In Action]. Why is it always the ones with wives and children?” I had seen that look before in the faces of field commanders in Afghanistan. They talk about their mission and their operations with an air of enthusiasm that is either real or projected, becoming a little more cautious as they explain the “small steps of progress”. Then, bang, one more of their soldiers is dead – “ragdolled” as the men call it. The patter stops, the mask drops fleetingly, and raw grief stares back into your face.
MOP + UON Spells Trouble For Iran
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=508560
But only if someone has the guts to use them.
Islamic Death Bounties in the U.S.A.
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/09/islamic-death-bounties-in-the-u-s-a-by-jamie-glazov/
Excerpt: Gaubatz: Many readers, specifically liberals, will say it isn’t true that Islamic leaders advocate hatred and violence, but in reality if the readers would conduct just basic research of the materials provided to worshippers (to include children) in their local mosques, their conclusions would change. I have been to over 200 U.S. mosques and within the walls of a mosque are materials advocating the same violent ideology Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden promote. Numerous materials provided to the worshippers by the Imams call for the destruction of Israel, America, honor killings (such as a father killing his daughter or son if they leave or cause harm to Islam), killing homosexuals, and to even kill priests or nuns because the spread of Christianity is harmful to the Dawaa (spreading/teaching of Islam).
Muslim in Washington, DC: "I'm not scared to die! I will kill you! I will blow people up and the Metro!"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/muslim-in-washington-dc-im-not-scared-to-die-i-will-kill-you-i-will-blow-people-up-and-the-metro.html
Guess he didn’t get the “Islam is a Religion of Peace” memo.
UK: Girl missing for ten years was victim of honor killing
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/uk-girl-missing-for-ten-years-was-victim-of-honor-killing.html
Excerpt: No one, of course, dares to confront the root of the problem by pointing out such inconvenient truths as the fact that a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). …A mother broke a ten-year silence to claim her teenage daughter was murdered in an 'honour killing', a court heard yesterday. Tulay Goren, 15, was allegedly killed by her father and buried in his garden after he learnt she was in a sexual relationship with a man twice her age. Mehmet Goren, 49, with the help of at least one of his brothers, then allegedly dug up her remains in Woodford Green, East London, and disposed of them a week later. Her body has never been found…. But after losing her virginity Tulay was seen as a 'valueless commodity', the court heard….
France: Muslim soccer team refuses to play match against gay team
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/france-muslim-soccer-team-refuses-to-play-match-against-gay-team.html
Tolerant Islam.
Obama Declares War on Free Speech
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33869
Excerpt: The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” What could be wrong with that? Plenty. First of all, there’s that little matter of the First Amendment, which preserves Americans’ right to free speech and freedom of the press, which are obviously mutually inclusive. Any law that infringed on speech at all -- far less in such vague and sweeping terms -- would be unconstitutional. “Incitement” and “hatred” are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as “hate speech.” The Founding Fathers knew that the freedom of speech was an essential safeguard against tyranny: the ability to dissent, freely and publicly and without fear of imprisonment or other reprisal, is a cornerstone of any genuine republic. If some ideas cannot be heard and are proscribed from above, the ones in control are tyrants, however benevolent they may be.
The Man with the Broken Arm and the NHS
http://www.rangelmd.com/index.php/2009/10/08/the-man-with-the-broken-arm-and-the-nhs/
Check out his picture to see what National Health Care means for you. Excerpt: This is likely what happened to Mr. Eeles. A few weeks after the accident, an orthopedic surgeon told Mr. Eeles that he would need to have surgery soon in order for the bones to heal correctly. That was 10 months ago. The fracture occurred on December 3rd 2008 and Mr. Eeles claims that the surgery has been scheduled and canceled four times since then (the British National Health Service claims only two were canceled). The arm has since improperly healed in a non-functional state.Thus Eeles the plummer has become the latest poster boy for the evils of socialized medical care. Inefficiency and long wait times for non-emergent tests and procedures are so common and endemic to socialized medical systems (Canada and the UK) that they are intensively studied and recorded. Such a phenomenon is unheard of to most Americans who only need to wait 2 week on average to get a knee replacement.
A New Entitlement That Cuts the Deficit!
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18535&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Excerpt: Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) kept a lid on the cost by making this program non-universal: Enrollment is limited to those who aren't offered employer-sponsored insurance and earn under 400 percent of the poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four. CBO expects some 23 million people to sign up by 2019. But this firewall is unlikely to last even that long, says the Journal. Liberals are demanding heftier subsidies, and once people see the deal their neighbors are getting on "free" health care, they too will want in. Even CBO seems to find this unrealistic, noting "These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation." Then there are the many budget gimmicks, says the Journal: Baucus spends $10.9 billion to eliminate the scheduled Medicare cuts to physician payments --but only for next year. In 2011, he assumes they'll be reduced by 25 percent, with even deeper cuts later. Congress has overridden this "sustainable growth rate" every year since 2003 and will continue to do so because deeper cuts in Medicare's price controls will cause many doctors to quit the program. Fixing this alone would add $245 billion to the bill's costs, according to an earlier CBO estimate.
States with connected senators get exemptions on the cost of the health care bill!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461434007876034.html
Unbelievable! Excerpt: How good is Sen. Max Baucus's health reform bill? So good that Democrats have made sure some of the most costly provisions don't apply to their own states. The Senate Finance Committee is gearing up for a final vote next week, and Chairman Baucus now appears to have the Democratic votes to pass his bill. Getting this far has of course meant cutting deals, and those deals, it turns out, are illuminating. Reid (Nevada) and Charles Schumer (New York) are among those inserting goodies for their states. A central feature of the Baucus bill is the vast expansion of state Medicaid programs. This is necessary, we are told, to cover more of the nation's uninsured. The provision has angered governors, since the federal government will cover only part of the expansion and stick fiscally strapped states with an additional $37 billion in costs. The "states, with our financial challenges right now, are not in a position to accept additional Medicaid responsibilities," griped Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland. Poor Mr. Strickland. If only he lived in . . . Nevada! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is worried about losing his seat next year, worked out a deal by which the federal government will pay all of his home state's additional Medicaid expenses for the next five years. Under the majority leader's very special formula, only three other states—Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan—qualify for this perk, on the grounds, as Mr. Reid put it recently on the Senate floor, that they "are suffering more than most."
Climate Change This Week: Antarctic Ice Report
According to World Climate Report, "The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history." Marco Tedesco and Andrew Monaghan, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, report, "A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008-2009 according to space borne microwave observations for 1980-2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008-2009 melt season." The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
You might be a redneck if….
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?p=573033
Different take.
Is my blog OK?
I had a report from a reader that my blog was coming up with text over-laying the first few articles. Doesn’t happen when I log on, so it may be him. Please let me know if you can't read it okay. Thanks. tartanmarine@gmail.com.
Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/10/09/reaction_obama_wins_nobel_peac.html
Excerpt: A surprising unanimity of opinion is emerging online that the award has been given to Obama prematurely -- and that this both poses a potential danger to his presidency and will serve as a challenge to the credibility of the Nobel-awarding committee in Oslo.At Time magazine, Nancy Gibbs argues, "The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise." Tweets ABC News's Jake Tapper, referring to a controversy earlier in Obama's presidency: "apparently the standards are more exacting for an ASU honorary degree these days." (An Arizona State University spokesperson in April explained a decision to invite the president to give the commencement address without also giving him an honorary degree by saying, "His body of work is yet to come. That's why we're not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency." And Tyrants rejoice: “I believe Obama is working hard for peace," said Muhammad Habash, a Syrian member of parliament and director of the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus. "We in Syria believe that Obama's initiative have been suitable, and that Syria is now witnessing important steps to correct the relationship with the United States. I believe everyone here will be very happy for Obama." (Obama joins such Nobel Laureates as Yasser Arafat and Le Duc Tho, who helped bring the peace of the grave to millions. Barack Hussein Obama, Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm as the little children are taught to chant.)
How to Win the Nobel Peace Prize in 12 Days
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/10/09/tommy-seno-obama-nobel-prize-win/
Excerpt: Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. Over the last decade the only requirement to win the prize was that the nominee had to be critical of George W. Bush (see Al Gore, Mohamed El Baradei and Jimmy Carter). President Obama has broken new ground here. Nominations for potential winners of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ended on February 1. The president took office only 12 days earlier on January 20. Let’s take a look at the president’s first 12 days in the White House according to his public schedule to see what he did to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize:
Nobel runners-up to Obama
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Nobel-runners-up-to-Obama-63847952.html
At least Obama beat out these egotistical connivers! Two runners-up: Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been arrested and beaten for his peaceful political resistance to the brutal dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. But his persistence has brought about small steps toward a free and open Zimbabwean society. The pro-democracy, AIDS and environmental advocacy of Chinese dissident Hu Jia has earned him a three-and-a-half year sentence in Red China's gulag.
Nobel Panel Hopes Peace Prize Boosts Obama Self-Esteem
http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=4239
Satire. I think. Excerpt: An unnamed member of the Nobel committee this morning explained the shocking decision to give the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, who had served only 11 days as president when nominated, by noting that the gold medal would go a long way toward boosting Mr. Obama’s self-esteem. “We used to give the award to persons who had actual accomplishments,” the anonymous source said. “But that’s so reactionary, and almost nostalgic. By giving the peace prize to Obama, we’re recognizing his potential, and applauding his intentions in a way that we hope will result in future actions.”
Next: Help Obama win the Heisman Trophy!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Next-help-Obama-win-the-Heisman-63851657.html
Excerpt: I just went to http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/theheismanvote/2009/
and, in the "Type your nominee here!" field, entered "Barack Obama." The winner of this Nissan-sponsored promotion will actually receive one official vote for the Heisman award as sort of the people's choice. You can actually go back and vote once each day between now and the Heisman award in December. (yeah, but how do we get the Pope to fast track BO for sainthood?)
After beating video, Daley gets more help from Obama
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-08-oct08,0,1636195.column
Excerpt: The Obama administration may not be much for governing and tough decision-making, but when it comes to symbolism and aiding the mayor of Chicago, it is quite adept. Last week it was Daley's failed push for the 2016 Olympics. This week it's the murders. "This is not a show-and-tell," Daley said, when a reporter wondered whether Wednesday's public relations effort was more dog-and-pony-show than real policy. (John Kass is a Chicago treasure, worth more for the taxpayers than two Olympics.)
A peek at a federal employee’s spam e-mail from Team Obama
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/10/08/a-peek-at-a-federal-employees-spam-e-mail/
Excerpt: Over the past couple of weeks, we have received several emails (a couple below, two received within a minute of each other) from the Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke, announcing ANOTHER new White House web site. This web site is where employees can make suggestions for how government can save money……ooooh, and win a trip to see Obama!! What a joke after all we have seen since Obama was elected! Too bad the general public cannot submit suggestions.
Poll May Point to Democrats' Worries Beyond Old Dominion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100803288.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: The latest Washington Post poll of the Virginia gubernatorial race represents more than bad news for Democratic nominee R. Creigh Deeds. The findings paint a portrait of the electorate that, if replicated elsewhere, stands as a warning sign for President Obama and Democrats who will be running in next year's midterm elections. The poll shows a lack of enthusiasm among many of the voters who propelled Obama and his party to victory last November, raising troubling questions for the Democrats: Were many of Obama's 2008 energetic supporters one-time participants in the political process who care little about other races? Is Obama's current agenda turning off some voters who backed him last year but now might be looking elsewhere? (Barack Hussein Obama, Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm as the little children are taught to chant.)
House ethics committee announces expanded investigation into Rep. Rangel
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/62281-house-ethics-committee-will-announce-an-expanded-investigation-into-rep-rangel
Excerpt: The House ethics committee voted unanimously Thursday to expand the investigation into Rep. Charles Rangel’s (D-N.Y.) alleged financial irregularities. The panel broadened the jurisdiction of its probe to include amendments he made in August to his financial disclosure records showing at least $600,000 in previously unreported assets, according to an ethics committee statement.
Transfer Machine
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2009/10/07/transfer_machine
Excerpt: "The government who robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul," George Bernard Shaw once said. For a socialist, Shaw demonstrated good sense with that quotation. Unfortunately, America has become a laboratory in which his hypothesis is being tested. The theory of government I was taught says that government provides benefits, primarily security, to the entire population. In return we pay taxes. But lately the government has been a distributor of special privileges, taking money from some and giving it to others. America is now about evenly split between those who pay income taxes and those who consume them. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center recently disclosed that close to half of all households will pay no income tax this year. Some will pay less than zero that is, they'll get money from those of us who do pay taxes.
Soldier 'Loved Life and Lived It to the Fullest'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/08/AR2009100802313.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Excerpt: Like so many of his peers, Nekl Allen felt compelled to serve his country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And joining an ever-increasing number of his fellow soldiers, Allen was buried Thursday morning at Arlington National Cemetery. Staff Sgt. Nekl B. Allen, 29, of Rochester, N.Y., was killed Sept. 12 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, along with Spec. Daniel L. Cox, 23, of Parsons, Kan. Enemy forces attacked their vehicle with a makeshift bomb and small-arms fire, the Defense Department said.
No Compromise on Afghanistan
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33855
Excerpt: Right now, as commander-in-chief, President Obama must lead on Afghanistan, or we risk losing what he has described as the "central front" in our battle against al Qaeda. This past March, the President laid out his mission for the war: “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” And he inserted his top commander to pull it off, General Stanley McChrystal. At this moment, the situation in this fragile region is deteriorating. The insurgency is growing more effective and momentum is not on our side. Deaths of American soldiers are on the rise, and our troops lack the resources to turn the tide. General McChrystal, has recently reported that unless the President provides the full resources of a counter-insurgency strategy and does so quickly, we risk "mission failure" within 12 months. This is a view supported by General David Petraeus, now head of US Central Command.
Young Hamlet's Agony
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=508519
Excerpt: The genius of democracy is the rotation of power that forces the opposition to be serious — particularly about things like war, about which until Jan. 20 of this year Democrats were decidedly unserious. When the Iraq War (which a majority of Senate Democrats voted for) ran into trouble and casualties began to mount, Democrats followed the shifting winds of public opinion and turned decidedly anti-war. But needing political cover because of their post-Vietnam reputation for weakness on national defense, they adopted Afghanistan as their pet war. "I was part of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which elevated the idea of Afghanistan as 'the right war' to conventional Democratic wisdom," Democratic consultant Bob Shrum wrote after President Obama was elected. "This was accurate as criticism of the Bush administration, but it was also reflexive and perhaps by now even misleading as policy." Which is a clever way to say that championing victory in Afghanistan was a contrived and disingenuous policy in which Democrats never seriously believed, a convenient two-by-four with which to bash George Bush over Iraq — while still appearing warlike enough to fend off the soft-on-defense stereotype. Brilliantly crafted and perfectly cynical, the "Iraq War bad, Afghan War good" posture worked. Democrats first won Congress, then the White House. But now, unfortunately, they must govern. No more games. No more pretense. So what does their commander in chief do now with the war he once declared had to be won but had been almost criminally under-resourced by Bush? Perhaps provide the resources to win it? You would think so. And that's exactly what Obama's handpicked commander requested on Aug. 30 — a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops to stabilize a downward spiral and save Afghanistan the way a similar surge saved Iraq. That was more than five weeks ago. Still no response. Obama agonizes publicly as the world watches. Why? Because, explains National Security Adviser James Jones, you don't commit troops before you decide on a strategy. No strategy? On March 27, flanked by his secretaries of defense and state, the president said this: "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He then outlined a civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. And to emphasize his seriousness, the president made clear that he had not arrived casually at this decision. The new strategy, he declared, "marks the conclusion of a careful policy review." (You can fool some of the people all the time, and 54% on election day!)
A month in Helmand: the soldiers' stories
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6852533.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
Excerpt: Beneath the lip of his helmet the colonel’s face had the grey luminosity and glowing eyes of sudden grief. “I’ve just lost one of my best soldiers.” His words, so quiet that they were nearly a whisper, could almost have been a question. The identities of two dead soldiers had come over the radio just minutes earlier. Serjeant Paul McAleese, one of the battalion’s most renowned soldiers, had been so recently alive that his death warranted more than a degree of incredulity. “Shit day,” the colonel added. “Two KIA [Killed In Action]. Why is it always the ones with wives and children?” I had seen that look before in the faces of field commanders in Afghanistan. They talk about their mission and their operations with an air of enthusiasm that is either real or projected, becoming a little more cautious as they explain the “small steps of progress”. Then, bang, one more of their soldiers is dead – “ragdolled” as the men call it. The patter stops, the mask drops fleetingly, and raw grief stares back into your face.
MOP + UON Spells Trouble For Iran
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=508560
But only if someone has the guts to use them.
Islamic Death Bounties in the U.S.A.
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/10/09/islamic-death-bounties-in-the-u-s-a-by-jamie-glazov/
Excerpt: Gaubatz: Many readers, specifically liberals, will say it isn’t true that Islamic leaders advocate hatred and violence, but in reality if the readers would conduct just basic research of the materials provided to worshippers (to include children) in their local mosques, their conclusions would change. I have been to over 200 U.S. mosques and within the walls of a mosque are materials advocating the same violent ideology Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden promote. Numerous materials provided to the worshippers by the Imams call for the destruction of Israel, America, honor killings (such as a father killing his daughter or son if they leave or cause harm to Islam), killing homosexuals, and to even kill priests or nuns because the spread of Christianity is harmful to the Dawaa (spreading/teaching of Islam).
Muslim in Washington, DC: "I'm not scared to die! I will kill you! I will blow people up and the Metro!"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/muslim-in-washington-dc-im-not-scared-to-die-i-will-kill-you-i-will-blow-people-up-and-the-metro.html
Guess he didn’t get the “Islam is a Religion of Peace” memo.
UK: Girl missing for ten years was victim of honor killing
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/uk-girl-missing-for-ten-years-was-victim-of-honor-killing.html
Excerpt: No one, of course, dares to confront the root of the problem by pointing out such inconvenient truths as the fact that a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). …A mother broke a ten-year silence to claim her teenage daughter was murdered in an 'honour killing', a court heard yesterday. Tulay Goren, 15, was allegedly killed by her father and buried in his garden after he learnt she was in a sexual relationship with a man twice her age. Mehmet Goren, 49, with the help of at least one of his brothers, then allegedly dug up her remains in Woodford Green, East London, and disposed of them a week later. Her body has never been found…. But after losing her virginity Tulay was seen as a 'valueless commodity', the court heard….
France: Muslim soccer team refuses to play match against gay team
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/france-muslim-soccer-team-refuses-to-play-match-against-gay-team.html
Tolerant Islam.
Obama Declares War on Free Speech
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33869
Excerpt: The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” What could be wrong with that? Plenty. First of all, there’s that little matter of the First Amendment, which preserves Americans’ right to free speech and freedom of the press, which are obviously mutually inclusive. Any law that infringed on speech at all -- far less in such vague and sweeping terms -- would be unconstitutional. “Incitement” and “hatred” are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as “hate speech.” The Founding Fathers knew that the freedom of speech was an essential safeguard against tyranny: the ability to dissent, freely and publicly and without fear of imprisonment or other reprisal, is a cornerstone of any genuine republic. If some ideas cannot be heard and are proscribed from above, the ones in control are tyrants, however benevolent they may be.
The Man with the Broken Arm and the NHS
http://www.rangelmd.com/index.php/2009/10/08/the-man-with-the-broken-arm-and-the-nhs/
Check out his picture to see what National Health Care means for you. Excerpt: This is likely what happened to Mr. Eeles. A few weeks after the accident, an orthopedic surgeon told Mr. Eeles that he would need to have surgery soon in order for the bones to heal correctly. That was 10 months ago. The fracture occurred on December 3rd 2008 and Mr. Eeles claims that the surgery has been scheduled and canceled four times since then (the British National Health Service claims only two were canceled). The arm has since improperly healed in a non-functional state.Thus Eeles the plummer has become the latest poster boy for the evils of socialized medical care. Inefficiency and long wait times for non-emergent tests and procedures are so common and endemic to socialized medical systems (Canada and the UK) that they are intensively studied and recorded. Such a phenomenon is unheard of to most Americans who only need to wait 2 week on average to get a knee replacement.
A New Entitlement That Cuts the Deficit!
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=18535&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD
Excerpt: Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) kept a lid on the cost by making this program non-universal: Enrollment is limited to those who aren't offered employer-sponsored insurance and earn under 400 percent of the poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four. CBO expects some 23 million people to sign up by 2019. But this firewall is unlikely to last even that long, says the Journal. Liberals are demanding heftier subsidies, and once people see the deal their neighbors are getting on "free" health care, they too will want in. Even CBO seems to find this unrealistic, noting "These projections assume that the proposals are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation." Then there are the many budget gimmicks, says the Journal: Baucus spends $10.9 billion to eliminate the scheduled Medicare cuts to physician payments --but only for next year. In 2011, he assumes they'll be reduced by 25 percent, with even deeper cuts later. Congress has overridden this "sustainable growth rate" every year since 2003 and will continue to do so because deeper cuts in Medicare's price controls will cause many doctors to quit the program. Fixing this alone would add $245 billion to the bill's costs, according to an earlier CBO estimate.
States with connected senators get exemptions on the cost of the health care bill!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574461434007876034.html
Unbelievable! Excerpt: How good is Sen. Max Baucus's health reform bill? So good that Democrats have made sure some of the most costly provisions don't apply to their own states. The Senate Finance Committee is gearing up for a final vote next week, and Chairman Baucus now appears to have the Democratic votes to pass his bill. Getting this far has of course meant cutting deals, and those deals, it turns out, are illuminating. Reid (Nevada) and Charles Schumer (New York) are among those inserting goodies for their states. A central feature of the Baucus bill is the vast expansion of state Medicaid programs. This is necessary, we are told, to cover more of the nation's uninsured. The provision has angered governors, since the federal government will cover only part of the expansion and stick fiscally strapped states with an additional $37 billion in costs. The "states, with our financial challenges right now, are not in a position to accept additional Medicaid responsibilities," griped Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland. Poor Mr. Strickland. If only he lived in . . . Nevada! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is worried about losing his seat next year, worked out a deal by which the federal government will pay all of his home state's additional Medicaid expenses for the next five years. Under the majority leader's very special formula, only three other states—Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan—qualify for this perk, on the grounds, as Mr. Reid put it recently on the Senate floor, that they "are suffering more than most."
Climate Change This Week: Antarctic Ice Report
According to World Climate Report, "The ice melt across during the Antarctic summer (October-January) of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history." Marco Tedesco and Andrew Monaghan, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, report, "A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008-2009 according to space borne microwave observations for 1980-2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008-2009 melt season." The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/)
You might be a redneck if….
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?p=573033
Different take.
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