Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Road to 1984 Under the Semblance of Conservation




To establish a social and behavioral sciences research program at the Department of Energy, and for other purposes. (Introduced in House)

HR 3247 IH

111th CONGRESS

1st Session
H. R. 3247
To establish a social and behavioral sciences research program at the Department of Energy, and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 17, 2009

Mr. BAIRD introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Science and Technology

A BILL

To establish a social and behavioral sciences research program at the Department of Energy, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES RESEARCH PROGRAM.

(a) In General- The Secretary shall establish a social and behavioral sciences research program to identify and understand social and behavioral factors that influence energy consumption and acceptance and adoption rates of new energy technologies, and to promote the utilization of the results of social and behavioral research to improve the design, development, demonstration, and application of energy technologies.

(b) Director- The Secretary shall appoint or designate a Director of Social and Behavioral Research to carry out the program established under this section.

(c) Duties of the Director- The Director shall--

  • (1) develop a research plan in accordance with section 2;

  • (2) implement the research program under this section;

  • (3) work with the relevant Department of Energy program offices to integrate the results of social and behavioral research into their work;

  • (4) develop tools, practices, and information to apply and integrate the results of social and behavioral research into programs that--
(A) design, develop, and demonstrate technologies that supply energy and improve energy efficiency; and

(B) provide information on energy consumption to consumers; and
  • (5) assist the Secretary in awarding research grants under section 3.
    SEC. 2. RESEARCH PLAN.
(a) In General- The Director, in consultation with the Advisory Committee established under section 4, shall develop a research plan and, not later than 9 months after the date of enactment of this Act, transmit such plan to the Congress. Prior to finalizing the research plan, the Director shall publish a draft of the proposed research plan in the Federal Register with a public comment period of not less than 30 days.

(b) Contents of Research Plan- The research plan shall--
  • (1) set forth priorities and a schedule for carrying out the research program under section 1 and the research grant program under section 3;

  • (2) address social and behavioral factors that influence--

  • (A) patterns of energy consumption by individuals, households, and businesses; and
(B) decisions to implement energy conservation measures,
including the factors that influence decisions to adopt energy efficient technologies and practices;
  • (3) include a description of the mechanisms the Department will use to integrate the findings of social and behavioral research into other relevant Department programs; and

  • (4) include responses to comments received during the public comment period.
(c) Review and Revision- The Director shall review the research plan every 5 years and revise the plan as appropriate.

SEC. 3. SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH GRANTS.

(a) In General- The Secretary shall provide grants to support social and behavioral research consistent with the research plan developed under section 2.

(b) Awards- Grant awards under this section may be for a period up to 3 years. The Secretary shall award grants through a competitive, merit-based, peer-reviewed process.

(c) Authorization of Appropriations- There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary to carry out this section $10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2010 through 2015.

SEC. 4. SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH ADVISORY COMMITTEE.

(a) Establishment- The Secretary shall establish an Advisory Committee composed of experts in relevant fields--
  • (1) to advise the Secretary and the Director on priority areas for research;

  • (2) to assist the Director in the development of the research plan under section 2; and

  • (3) to provide other assistance and advice as requested by the Secretary or the Director.
(b) Federal Advisory Committee Act- Section 14 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) shall not apply to the Advisory Committee established under subsection (a) until 3 years after the date the Advisory Committee is established.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Great article by an Australian scientist

Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites

Geologist Ian Plimer takes a contrary view, arguing that man-made climate change is a con trick perpetuated by environmentalists

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun

July 28, 2009

Ian Plimer has outraged the ayatollahs of purist environmentalism, the Torquemadas of the doctrine of global warming, and he seems to relish the damnation they heap on him.
Plimer is a geologist, professor of mining geology at Adelaide University, and he may well be Australia's best-known and most notorious academic.

Plimer, you see, is an unremitting critic of "anthropogenic global warming" -- man-made climate change to you and me -- and the current environmental orthodoxy that if we change our polluting ways, global warming can be reversed.

It is, of course, not new to have a highly qualified scientist saying that global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon with many precedents in history. Many have made the argument, too, that it is rubbish to contend human behaviour is causing the current climate change. And it has often been well argued that it is totally ridiculous to suppose that changes in human behaviour -- cleaning up our act through expensive slight-of-hand taxation tricks -- can reverse the trend.

But most of these scientific and academic voices have fallen silent in the face of environmental Jacobinism. Purging humankind of its supposed sins of environmental degradation has become a religion with a fanatical and often intolerant priesthood, especially among the First World urban elites.

But Plimer shows no sign of giving way to this orthodoxy and has just published the latest of his six books and 60 academic papers on the subject of global warming. This book, Heaven and Earth -- Global Warming: The Missing Science, draws together much of his previous work. It springs especially from A Short History of Plant Earth, which was based on a decade of radio broadcasts in Australia.

That book, published in 2001, was a best-seller and won several prizes. But Plimer found it hard to find anyone willing to publish this latest book, so intimidating has the environmental lobby become.

But he did eventually find a small publishing house willing to take the gamble and the book has already sold about 30,000 copies in Australia. It seems also to be doing well in Britain and the United States in the first days of publication.

Plimer presents the proposition that anthropogenic global warming is little more than a con trick on the public perpetrated by fundamentalist environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians and government officials who love nothing more than an issue that causes public anxiety.

While environmentalists for the most part draw their conclusions based on climate information gathered in the last few hundred years, geologists, Plimer says, have a time frame stretching back many thousands of millions of years.

The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human behaviour.

Polar ice, for example, has been present on the Earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time, Plimer writes. Plus, animal extinctions are an entirely normal part of the Earth's evolution.

(Plimer, by the way, is also a vehement anti-creationist and has been hauled into court for disrupting meetings by religious leaders and evangelists who claim the Bible is literal truth.)

Plimer gets especially upset about carbon dioxide, its role in Earth's daily life and the supposed effects on climate of human manufacture of the gas. He says atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at the lowest levels it has been for 500 million years, and that atmospheric carbon dioxide is only 0.001 per cent of the total amount of the chemical held in the oceans, surface rocks, soils and various life forms. Indeed, Plimer says carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a plant food. Plants eat carbon dioxide and excrete oxygen. Human activity, he says, contributes only the tiniest fraction to even the atmospheric presence of carbon dioxide.

There is no problem with global warming, Plimer says repeatedly. He points out that for humans periods of global warming have been times of abundance when civilization made leaps forward. Ice ages, in contrast, have been times when human development slowed or even declined.

So global warming, says Plimer, is something humans should welcome and embrace as a harbinger of good times to come.

Monday, July 27, 2009

A Moron For All Seasons


During his speech at a National Press Club luncheon, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), questioned the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill:

“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said
Conyers.

“What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t
have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the
bill?”
Hey Conyers, if it is too hard to read the bill and even harder to understand it; VOTE NO!

Well, at least Conyers is stupid enough to attempt and explain why doesn't read important bills. The rest just make believe that they care. What a despicable conglomerate of dunces.


In case you are not familiar with this clown:

In letters sent separately to the House Ethics Committee, the FBI, and the US Attorney's office by two former aides of Conyers, they alleged that Conyers used his staff to work on several local and state campaigns and forced them to baby-sit and chauffeur his children.

In late December 2006, Conyers "accepted responsibility" for possibly violating House rules. A statement issued December 29, 2006, by the House Ethics Committee Chairman Doc Hasting (R-Wash.) and Ranking Minority Member Howard Berman (D-Calif.), said that Conyers acknowledged what he characterized as a "lack of clarity" in his communications with staff members regarding their official duties and responsibilities, and accepted responsibility for his actions. In deciding to drop the matter, Hastings and Berman state: After reviewing the information gathered during the inquiry, and in light of Representative Conyers’ cooperation with the inquiry, we have concluded that this matter should be resolved through the issuance of this public statement and the agreement by Representative Conyers to take a number of additional, significant steps to ensure that his office complies with all rules and standards regarding campaign and personal work by congressional staff.

Israelis Protest Against Obama!

I contrast with the Jewish community in the United States, Israeli Jews, and particularly the Orthodox fringe, see in Obama and his policies an existential threat to the survival of the Jewish state.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

NO COMMENT!!!

Read this article and ask yourself what would be the headlines if the records broken were in reverse.

Read Article

And while we are on the subject...

Read Article

Friday, July 24, 2009

A Conspiracy of Silence: U.S. Media and Honor Killings

Several weeks ago, reports from Kingston, Ontario, told the story of three sisters aged 13 to 19 and another female relative, age 50, immigrants from Afghanistan, who had drowned in the Rideau Canal near Kingston. The supposedly heartsick parents told the police that their daughters had taken the car without permission, and had drowned in this accident. Today, CJAD, a Montreal radio station, reports that the parents were arrested on their way to the airport in an attempt to flee the country.

The police are investigating these deaths as honor killings.

Meanwhile, as Mark Steyn reports:

"Police say 14-year-old Kinza Kaianad died Monday evening at Kingston General Hospital as a result of injuries she sustained Saturday in a hotel pool in Gananoque, roughly 30 kilometres east of Kingston.

Her mother, 43-year-old Naila Yasmin, died in hospital on Sunday. Yasmin, Kaianad and another daughter, age 11, were found unconscious in the indoor hotel pool just before 9 a.m. Saturday.

There would seem to be a statistically improbable number of multiple drownings of
female members of Muslim families in Kingston this summer. If you're a young
female Muslim, and you have any say in the matter, you might want to vacation
elsewhere.

[UPDATE: The third Muslim girl found in the swimming pool has died. That's seven drowned young Muslim females showing up in the same morgue within a month. In other circumstances, they'd be planning the movie with Ashley Judd or some such as the crusading feminist Assistant DA. But as the M-word's involved I expect poor Zainab Shafi and the rest will be quickly forgotten.]"
It is difficult to ascertain the number of honor killing that are taking place in Western Europe, and North and South America, but we can be sure that it is large. Actually, one would be too many.

The question that arises is why have these killings not become the topic of investigative reporting and feminist rage? Is it that the liberal left is seeing this just as part of accepting multiculturalism and the fact that Islam condones this treatment of women?

If so, why are they not willing to accept Judeo-Christian multicultural values when dealing with homosexuality and abortion.
I am more inclined to believe that the the lack of reporting has more to do with the campaign for intimidation subsidized by the Saudis and which involves lengthy and costly litigation.
The video of the beheading of Daniel Pearl probably is there too, in the back of journalist's minds.
Okay , let's go back to investigating real crimes.
Let's start in Cambridge and the horrendous and brutal treatment of professor Gates where the police acted stupidly.

For Radical Muslims: The Constitution has to go!

The 2009 Hizb ut-Tahrir conference featured an illuminating exchange between a questioner from the audience and a conference speaker. Their identities were not immediately available.

Transcript:

Audience Member: "Would you get rid of the Constitution for Shariah, yes or no?"

Imam: "Over the Muslim world? Yes, it would be gone."

Audience Member: "And so if the United States was a Muslim world, the Constitution would be gone?"

Imam: "If the United States was in the Muslim world, the Muslims who are here would be calling and happy to see the Shariah applied, yes we would."

Audience Member: "And the Constitution gone. That's all. "
Imam: "Yes as Muslims they would be long gone."

Audience Member: 'You answered."

For more information on Hizb ut-Tahrir Click Here

NY on track for one of the coldest Julys: Must be Global Warming

From the National Weather Service

PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
NEW YORK NY444 AM EDT FRI JUL 24 2009

...UNUSUALLY COOL JULY FOR CENTRAL PARK...

FOR SOME PERSPECTIVE...HERE ARE THE TOP TEN COOLEST JULYS ON RECORD SINCE 1869 FOR CENTRAL PARK IN NEW YORK CITY:

COOLEST AVG. TEMP. YEAR
70.7 1888
71.9 1884
72.1 1914
72.3 2000/1871
72.4 1891
72.6 1895
72.8 1902/1869
72.9 1956
73.1 1890
73.2 2001

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Big Dig New York Style


For those of you who still have faith in governments being able to do anything efficiently, here is a news item that perhaps will make you rethink your position.
The headlines yesterday in New York City announced that completion of the Second Avenue subway construction project will be delayed till 2016. So far this is not shocking. However some details concerning this project might illustrate why some of us believe in smaller government and a minimum use of unionized labor force.

The construction of this 8.8 miles subway line was announced in 1929, one month before the stock market crash.

Construction didn't begin till 1972

At this point cost estimates are close to 5 billion dollars, which translates to $625,000,000 per mile or $120,000 a foot.

And now my forecast: This line will not be completed till 2029, one-hundred years after construction was announced. The taxpayers will be lucky if the cost is below $15 billion in today's dollars. If you don't believe me, Google Big Dig in Boston.
To think that New York City is managing to screw up this project without Kennedy or Tip O'Neil.

Can anyone say "Government managed health care will lower cost"?


Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Obama and Israel, Into the Abyss, by Daniel Pipes

Once again Daniel Pipes manages to present the current crisis in relations between Israel and the USA in a clear, concise and coherent way. Must read for those interested in the topic.

Read Article

On the same subject, Jef Jacoby in the Boston Globe.

Read Article

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

My Favorite News Reports


Jordanian authorities have started revoking the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians living in Jordan to avoid a situation in which they would be "resettled" permanently in the kingdom, Jordanian and Palestinian officials revealed on Monday. This is an incredible article. If the events that are taking place in Jordan had taken place in Israel, the condemnation would be universal. Also, pay attention to comments by "Jordanian Officials" and remember that Jordan is at peace with Israel. Scary!

Read Article in The Jerusalem Post

Bailouts could cost the U.S. $23 trillion. Read this report by Special Inspector General Barofsky, an Obama appointee, and then try to remember your basic economics course and what happens when you print money.

Read Article in Politico
The Mayo Clinic comes against Obama's healthcare plan.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Legally Sanctioned Rape in Iran Before Executions











Members of the Basij paramilitary militia

The Jerusalem Post, in a shocking interview with a member of the Iranian paramilitary Basij militia, reports on the savagery of this organization which is composed of teenagers. What makes the behavior of these teenage soldiers particularly horrendous is the fact that they were forced to commit rapes to comply with religious duties commanded by Islam, the religion of peace and mercy. Here is a segment of the interview showing the brutality of these rapes. A link to the complete article will be posted on the bottom of this posting:

He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.”

In the Islamic Republic it is illegal to execute a young woman, regardless of her crime, if she is a virgin, he explained. Therefore a “wedding” ceremony is conducted the night before the execution: The young girl is forced to have sexual intercourse with a prison guard--essentially raped by her “husband.”

“I regret that, even though the marriages were legal,” he said.

Why the regret, if the marriages were “legal?”

”Because,” he went on, “I could tell that the girls were more afraid of their ‘wedding’ night than of the execution that awaited them in the morning. And they would always fight back, so we would have to put sleeping pills in their food. By morning the girls would have an empty expression; it seemed like they were ready or wanted to die.

”I remember hearing them cry and scream after [the rape] was over,” he said. “I will never forget how this one girl clawed at her own face and neck with her finger nails afterwards. She had deep scratches all over her.”

Read Complete Article

Al-Kadi and Ptech: Saudis Undermine US Security

Rachel Ehrenfeld is an expert on terrorism who has advised and lectured at the highest levels of government and the corporate wold.

She holds a PhD. from Hebrew University and has written for The Jerusalem Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, National Review and The New York Sun. She makes guest appearances at major news programs at CNN, Fox, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and NBC.

Ehrenfeld became involved in an international legal controversy when she lost a libel case brought before Mr Justice David Eady in the English High Court of Justice by Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz concerning her book Funding Evil. She preemptively counter-sued bin Mahfouz to obtain a declaration that the judgment would not be enforced in the United States and that her book was not defamatory under United States defamation law, but her lawsuit was dismissed by the New York courts on the grounds of a lack of personal jurisdiction over bin Mahfouz.
Rachel Ehrenfeld
In response to this and similar incidents, the New York state legislature passed, and on May-01-2008 Gov. Paterson signed, a law which "offers New Yorkers greater protection against libel judgments in countries whose laws are inconsistent with the freedom of speech granted by the United States Constitution." (See Wikipedia)

Here is an interesting article she has published in her blog on the topic of a software company and the danger it poses to U.S. security: Read Article

YOUR MONEY AT WORK: Links Circulating in Conservative Blogs

Recovery.org, reports on the contracts awarded by the government in the recovery program. Let us see how well our taxes are spent by the parasites, sorry...I mean bureaucrats in Washington:

Over 16 million dollars for canned pork. This gives a new meaning to the the concept of "Pork" in Congress.

Say cheese! If you say cheese while looking at this contract, no grin will appear in your face. 5.7 million dollars awarded for cheese.

1.5 million dollars for mozzarella. Pizza anyone?

The dumb taxpayers pay $351,000 to replace a dumbwaiter.


$1.2 million for 2 pound sliced ham. If you understand what the taxpayers get in return, please email me. I don't.

Open Sesame. $1.4 million to repair door.

Obama's real agenda, by Anne Bayefsky



This article was published in The Jerusalem Post on July 19, 2009.



President Barack Obama last Monday met for the first time with leaders of selected Jewish organizations and leaks from the meeting now make one thing very clear. The only free country in the Middle East no longer has a friend in the leader of the free world. Obama is the most hostile sitting American president in the history of the state of Israel.

This was the very first meeting with Jewish community's leaders. Earlier requests for an audience with major Jewish organizations had reportedly been ignored. Six months after taking office the president finally got around to issuing an invitation to stop the bleeding. Increasing numbers of Jews even among the overwhelming number who voted for Obama have been voicing serious concern about his real agenda.

The meeting, however, did not showcase the president's trademark engagement and dialogue routine. Instead, he decided to cherry pick his Jewish audience to include pro-Obama newcomers with little support in the mainstream Jewish world, such as J Street, while blackballing the Zionist Organization of America. The oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, with a Washington office second in size only to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee(AIPAC), was not a voice Obama wanted to hear. This leaves the president willing to engage Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but not ZOA President Mort Klein.

The growing alarm in the Jewish community was also something the White House was bent on covering up. They refused to put the meeting on the President's public schedule until it was outed. The White House demanded strict confidentiality and issued a terse couple of lines that it occurred when it was all over.

BUT THERE is no papering over the distressing reality that emerged. The president told his listeners that he preferred putting daylight between the United States and Israel. His reported justification: "there was no light between the US and Israeli positions for the last eight years, and no progress was made."

Evidently, unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, 21 settlements and9,000 residents counts for nothing. The Palestinian terrorist leadership and street have refused to accept a Jewish state for the past eight years (and the previous 53) because the United States did not add sufficiently to Israel's isolation.

The president apparently believes that the Palestinians are more likely to end terrorism, incitement to violence and rampant anti-Semitism if the United States applies more pressure on their victims. Even if Obama doesn't get it, Mahmoud Abbas does. He is now refusing to negotiate anything with the new Israeli government until Obama's settlement conditions are met.

During the meeting, the president repeatedly described his new policy in terms of one of Yasser Arafat's favorite mantras, "even-handedness." That's diplotalk for a moral equivalence between an Arab war against Jewish self-determination launched from the day of Israel's birth decades before any "occupation" and the conditions of third-generation Palestinian"refugees" kept in limbo pending Israel's destruction. But Obama's even-handedness was no slip of the tongue. In his Cairo speech, the president equated the Holocaust to Palestinian "dislocation."

The president promoted his strategy of putting hard public "pressure" on Israel as a means to build more credibility with Arab states. He must have meant the kind of credibility that comes from his policy of leaving an "open door" to Iran after its discredited election.

OBAMA THEN claimed that the widespread perception of an anti-Israel agenda was all the media's fault because the media is only interested in a"man-bites-dog" story. When an administration sends a US ambassador back to Syria though it is still listed as a key state sponsor of terrorism, hosts terrorist kingpins pursuing Israel's annihilation, and was caught trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, the story is far-fetched alright, but true.

The president joked that Al-Jazeera often airs pictures of him wearing a yarmulke at the Western Wall. Except the photo-op during the election campaign had been intended to fool a Jewish audience that is no longer amused.

Reports also quote the president as claiming Israel has yet to "engage in serious self-reflection." Considering Israel is a democratic country forced to send its children into the armed forces for two to three years and its men into reserve duty for another twenty-five, that isn't the audacity of hope. It's just plain audacity.

There is no doubt that the pressure on Israel from the Obama administration is going to get a lot worse, as the President told the group "there is a narrow window of opportunity for advancing the peace process." Everyone understood the threat. The narrow window is Obama's self-defined political ambitions bearing no relationship to the realities of the Middle East or the welfare of either Israel or the United States.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Blame America First Crowd is Alive and Well







Pollution covering the India Bangladesh border as seen from space.


While visiting India, where the above pictures were taken, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State for the America bashers, apologized for U.S. contributions to global warming.
I guess that since Obama is keeping her out of the limelight, Hillary had to make some idiotic statement to show that she is till around.

In the news...

Israel has rejected a US call to halt the building of an apartment building in East Jerusalem. This is good news, even if it leads to a rift with the Obama administration. Arabs should not be given mixed messages about the future of Jerusalem. This city should remain the unified capital of Israel. Furthermore, if territories are returned to the Arabs and Jews live in them, they should be given the option of living as Jews under a Palestinian state. When Israel was founded hundreds of thousands of Arabs remained and have lived in the Jewish state with more freedom than the citizens of any Arab country. Let's reject any negotiations that include Judenrein policies.

Read Article

Ambassadors nominated by the Obama administration have brought among their many qualifications, an average of $323,900 in political contributions, and close to $40,000 to the Obama campaign. Normally I would have ignored this type of news. However, the sanctimonious attitude of the democrats when it came to Republicans makes me highlight this. I guess hypocrisy is bipartisan.

Read Article

Friday, July 17, 2009

He Nevers Misses an Opportunity to Bash America.

In his speech to the NAACP, Obama is quoted as stating that discrimination in America is at a low but he then proceeded to cite examples where discrimination still exists and "The first thing we need to do is make real the world of the NAACP charter" by eradicating "prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination among citizens of the United States."

As reported in newspapers, Obama mentioned:
Among the groups of Americans Obama cited as still feeling the sting of
prejudice and "the pain of discrimination" were "African American women paid
less for doing the same work as colleagues of a different color and a different
gender," as well as "Latinos made to feel unwelcome in their own country" and
"Muslim Americans viewed with suspicion simply because they kneel down to pray
to their god."

This guy never misses an opportunity to bash the country that has made him the most powerful black man in history.

Where did he get these canards? Who is the black woman who is is getting paid less for the same work as colleagues of different color? If he knows of one, why doesn't he send the Justice Department. Obama, don't you know that in the United States it is illegal to discriminate based on race?

Who is the American citizen of Latino (whatever this means) ancestry who is made unwelcome to his country? I have the strange feeling that Obama considers that Latino illegal aliens are in "Their Country." Sorry my radical president, if Latinos are illegally here, then they should be made to feel unwelcome to what is NOT their country.

Finally, who discriminates against Muslims for the way they pray to their God? Those who are viewed with suspicion, are so viewed because of terrorism and jihad. Their kneeling on a carpet is not what makes them suspicious in the eyes of Americans.

Obama, we have elected a president who is 50% Muslim or perhaps more. So get off our backs with your constant bashing of America.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

In case the cartoon is not clear enough. Biden in the straight jacket is saying "Israel...Iran...swine flu...breeep...la la la...do-doo...recovery...."

Palin is saying "I quit"

The media calls Palin crazy.

Prosecutors Appeal Sentences of Ilan Halimi's Murderers

I never understood the little attention paid to the brutal murder of Ilan Halimi, picturen on the left, a French Jew who was kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered by Arabs who targeted him simply because he was a Jew.

The murderers where apprehended, convicted and sentenced to what any considered too lenient sentences. To their credit, French prosecutors are appealing the sentences of several of the convicted murderers.

Did anyone hear of Jews rioting, burning cars and attacking Arabs in France after Halimi's murders?

I didn't think so.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

How Do You Spell Chutzpah?

P-E-L-M-U-T-T-E-R

Representative Perlmutter, Democrat from Colorado has inserted a provision into the climate change bill that will directly benefit a "green" bank he has invested in, as well as members of his family and at least one donor who was instrumental in setting this bank in San Francisco.

Te provision would force government regulators to promote green banking and says federal dollars should be used to support energy-efficient home improvements at government-funded housing projects.

Rep. Perlmutter's former wife and his father are investors in this bank.

For a complete article on this subject, click here.

"The Threat to Israel's Existence" Daniel Pipes

In a 55 minutes long lecture at Google, Daniel Pipes offers his insights on the situation of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Whether one agrees with him or not, Daniel Pipes is a voice that should be listened to and his counsel sought after.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Favorites of Mine

Thomas Sowell, once again explains why solution for inequities do not necessarily have the intended effect.

Liz Cheney may run for office. Besides good looks, she has many of the qualifications missing in the curriculum vitae of another Republican famous female politician: A Law Degree from the University of Chicago, and a significant career at the State Department. If she inherited her father's toughness and her mother's brains she has got my vote.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

A Talk With Ian Deligpole, published in the UK's Spectator

Meet the man who has exposed the great climate change con trick
James Delingpole
Wednesday, 8th July 2009

James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book

Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.

Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change.

‘The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,’ says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you’re unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority. Where fellow sceptics like Bjorn Lomborg or Lord Lawson of Blaby are prepared cautiously to endorse the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) more modest predictions, Plimer will cede no ground whatsoever. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, he argues, is the biggest, most dangerous and ruinously expensive con trick in history.

To find out why, let’s meet the good professor. He’s a tanned, rugged, white-haired sixtysomething — courteous and jolly but combative when he needs to be — glowing with the health of a man who spends half his life on field expeditions to Iran, Turkey and his beloved Outback. And he’s sitting in my garden drinking tea on exactly the kind of day the likes of the Guardian’s George Monbiot would probably like to ban. A lovely warm sunny one.

So go on then, Prof. What makes you sure that you’re right and all those scientists out there saying the opposite are wrong? ‘I’m a geologist. We geologists have always recognised that climate changes over time. Where we differ from a lot of people pushing AGW is in our understanding of scale. They’re only interested in the last 150 years. Our time frame is 4,567 million years. So what they’re doing is the equivalent of trying to extrapolate the plot of Casablanca from one tiny bit of the love scene. And you can’t. It doesn’t work.’

What Heaven And Earth sets out to do is restore a sense of scientific perspective to a debate which has been hijacked by ‘politicians, environmental activists and opportunists’. It points out, for example, that polar ice has been present on earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time; that extinctions of life are normal; that climate changes are cyclical and random; that the CO2 in the atmosphere — to which human activity contributes the tiniest fraction — is only 0.001 per cent of the total CO2 held in the oceans, surface rocks, air, soils and life; that CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant food; that the earth’s warmer periods — such as when the Romans grew grapes and citrus trees as far north as Hadrian’s Wall — were times of wealth and plenty.
All this is scientific fact — which is more than you can say for any of the computer models turning out doomsday scenarios about inexorably rising temperatures, sinking islands and collapsing ice shelves. Plimer doesn’t trust them because they seem to have little if any basis in observed reality.

‘I’m a natural scientist. I’m out there every day, buried up to my neck in sh**, collecting raw data. And that’s why I’m so sceptical of these models, which have nothing to do with science or empiricism but are about torturing the data till it finally confesses. None of them predicted this current period we’re in of global cooling. There is no problem with global warming. It stopped in 1998. The last two years of global cooling have erased nearly 30 years of temperature increase.’
Plimer’s uncompromising position has not made him popular. ‘They say I rape cows, eat babies, that I know nothing about anything. My favourite letter was the one that said: “Dear sir, drop dead”. I’ve also had a demo in Sydney outside one of my book launches, and I’ve had mothers coming up to me with two-year-old children in their arms saying: “Don’t you have any kind of morality? This child’s future is being destroyed.’’’ Plimer’s response to the last one is typically robust. ‘If you’re so concerned, why did you breed?’

This no-nonsense approach may owe something to the young Ian’s straitened Sydney upbringing. His father was crippled with MS, leaving his mother to raise three children on a schoolteacher’s wage. ‘We couldn’t afford a TV — not that TV even arrived in Australia till 1956. We’d use the same brown paper bag over and over again for our school lunches, always turn off the lights, not because of some moral imperative but out of sheer bloody necessity.’
One of the things that so irks him about modern environmentalism is that it is driven by people who are ‘too wealthy’. ‘When I try explaining “global warming” to people in Iran or Turkey they have no idea what I’m talking about. Their life is about getting through to the next day, finding their next meal. Eco-guilt is a first-world luxury. It’s the new religion for urban populations which have lost their faith in Christianity. The IPCC report is their Bible. Al Gore and Lord Stern are their prophets.’

Heaven And Earth is the offspring of a pop science book Plimer published in 2001 called A Short History of Planet Earth. It was based on ten years’ worth of broadcasts for ABC radio aimed mainly at people in rural areas. Though the book was a bestseller and won a Eureka prize, ABC refused to publish the follow-up; so did all the other major publishers he approached: ‘There’s a lot of fear out there. No one wants to go against the popular paradigm.’

Then someone put him in touch with a tiny publishing outfit in the middle of the bush — ‘husband, wife, three kids, so poor they didn’t even have curtains’ — and they said yes. Plimer couldn’t bring himself to accept an advance they clearly couldn’t afford. But then something remarkable happened. In just two days, the book sold out its 5,000 print run. Five further editions followed in swift succession. It has now sold 26,500 copies in Australia alone — with similarly exciting prospects in Britain and the US. There’s even an edition coming out in ultra-green Germany.

But surely Aussies of all people, with their bushfires and prolonged droughts, ought to be the last to buy into his message? ‘Ah, but the average punter is not a fool. I get sometimes as many as 1,000 letters and emails a day from people who feel helpless and disenfranchised and just bloody sick of all the nonsense they hear about global warming from metropolitan liberals who don’t even know where meat or milk comes from.’

Besides which, Australia’s economy is peculiarly vulnerable to the effects of climate change alarmism. ‘Though we have 40 per cent of the world’s uranium, we don’t have nuclear energy. We’re reliant mainly on bucketloads of cheap coal. Eighty per cent of our electricity is coal-generated and clustered around our coalfields are our aluminium producers. The very last thing the Australian economy needs is the cap and trade legislation being proposed by Kevin Rudd. If it gets passed, the country will go broke.’

Not for one second does Plimer believe it will get passed. As with its US equivalent the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, Kevin Rudd’s Emission Trading Scheme legislation narrowly squeaked its way through the House of Representatives. But again as in America, the real challenge lies with the upper house, the Senate. Thanks in good measure to the influence of Plimer and his book — ‘I have politicians ringing me all the time’ — the Senate looks likely to reject the bill. If it does so twice, then the Australian government will collapse, a ‘double dissolution’ will be forced and a general election called. ‘Australia is at a very interesting point in the climate change debate,’ says Plimer.

The potential repercussions outside Oz, of course, are even greater. Until this year, environmental legislation has enjoyed a pretty easy ride through the parliaments of the Anglosphere and the Eurosphere, with greener-than-thou politicians (from Dave ‘Windmill’ Cameron to Dave ‘climate change deniers are the flat-earthers of the 21st century’ Miliband) queuing up to impose ever more stringent carbon emissions targets and taxes on their hapless electorates.

In the days when most people felt rich enough to absorb these extra costs and guilty enough to think they probably deserved them, the politicians could get away with it. But the global economic meltdown has changed all that. As countless opinion surveys have shown, the poorer people feel, the lower down their list of priorities ecological righteousness sinks. ‘It’s one of the few good things to come out of this recession,’ says Plimer. ‘People are starting to ask themselves: “Can we really afford this green legislation?”’

Reading Plimer’s Heaven And Earth is at once an enlightening and terrifying experience. Enlightening because, after 500 pages of heavily annotated prose (the fruit of five years’ research), you are left in no doubt that man’s contribution to the thing they now call ‘climate change’ was, is and probably always will be negligible. Terrifying, because you cannot but be appalled by how much money has been wasted, how much unnecessary regulation drafted because of a ‘problem’ that doesn’t actually exist. (South Park, as so often, was probably the first to point this out in a memorable episode where Al Gore turns up to warn the school kids about a terrible beast, looking a bit like the Gruffalo, known as ManBearPig.)

Has it come in time to save the day, though? If there’s any justice, Heaven And Earth will do for the cause of climate change realism what Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth did for climate change alarmism. But as Plimer well knows, there is now a powerful and very extensive body of vested interests up against him: governments like President Obama’s, which intend to use ‘global warming’ as an excuse for greater taxation, regulation and protectionism; energy companies and investors who stand to make a fortune from scams like carbon trading; charitable bodies like Greenpeace which depend for their funding on public anxiety; environmental correspondents who need constantly to talk up the threat to justify their jobs.

Does he really believe his message will ever get through? Plimer smiles. ‘If you’d asked any scientist or doctor 30 years ago where stomach ulcers come from, they would all have given the same answer: obviously it comes from the acid brought on by too much stress. All of them apart from two scientists who were pilloried for their crazy, whacko theory that it was caused by a bacteria. In 2005 they won the Nobel prize. The “consensus” was wrong.’Ian Plimer’s Heaven And Earth: Global Warming — the Missing Science is published by Quartet (£25).

The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright ©2007 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. All Rights Reserved

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Read This!



Somehow, I don't feel that this picture was
given as wide a circulation as the picture of
Obama watching a teenager's ass in Italy.

Did he wipe off his hands the blood of the victims of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie?

This picture turns my stomach much more than the one with Chavez. Couldn't Obama at least have the expression that Rabin had when shaking hands with Arafat? What is it about this friendly expression with a murdering maniac?

What is next? An apology for the bombing of Lybia by President Reagan?

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Interesting article by Daniel Pipes concerning Salam Fayyad, who calls himself the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, accepting the idea of Jews living in the West Bank. I take all those pronouncements with cum granus salis. However, I always want to believe that a breakthrough is taking place between Arabs and Jews.

Read Article

Once again Charles Krauthammer offers the most rational and coherent analysis of the news. In today's column he writes about the uselessness of the arms reductions treaty that the neophyte president has signed in Moscow. Must read if you are interested in the ramifications of seemingly good hearted actions. The road to hell continues being paved with good intentions.

Read Article
Leaders at G-8 meeting command the earth to cool off by 2 degrees. I hope that while they did so, the music in the background was The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Article from IPT News






"Mainstream" Islamist Convention Features Hate Speech and Hezbollah Defense
IPT NewsJuly 8, 2009

A top aide to President Barack Obama provided a keynote address at last weekend's 46th Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) national convention, a gathering that attracted thousands of people and also featured anti-Semitic, homophobic rhetoric and defense of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

In her remarks, Senior Advisor for Public Engagement and International Affairs Valerie Jarrett noted she was the first White House official to address ISNA. She spoke in general terms about interfaith dialogue and cooperation. She praised her hosts for "the diversity of American organizations, and ideas that are represented and will be debated" at the convention.
And she openly invited ISNA President Ingrid Mattson to work on the White House Council on Women and Girls that Jarrett leads.

During her 15-minute remarks Friday, Jarrett briefly echoed the challenge her boss issued in Cairo last month about the changes needed to bring peace between Palestinians and Israelis. "Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed," Obama said in his speech.

"Hamas," he added, "must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist."

Jarrett was less specific, saying:

"Lasting peace will require a concerted effort on behalf of the Palestinians as well to end incitement and increase security and by Israel's Arab neighbors to take steps towards normalizing [relations with] Israel."

That's a significant shift since ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-support conspiracy and maintains significant leadership ties to its foundation 28 years ago by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. A more pointed statement also would have stood as a powerful retort to extremist sentiments offered in other segments of the conference.
While many panels featured criticism of U.S. policy and law enforcement, one stood out for its hate-filled rhetoric, and ISNA officials should have seen it coming a mile away. During a "meet the authors" session, Imam Warith Deen Umar, former head of the New York state prison chaplain program managed to:

Argue that key Obama aides are "Israeli," proving Jews "have control of the world."
Malign the motives of Jews active in the Civil Rights movement.

Portray the Holocaust as punishment of Jews for being "serially disobedient to Allah."
Insinuate that Hurricane Katrina was a result of tolerance for homosexuality.

Umar's radicalism is no secret. He previously hailed the 9/11 hijackers as martyrs who were secretly admired by Muslims. He has called for violent jihad. In a January 2004 speech, he urged people:

"Rise up and fight. And fight them until turmoil is no more and strike terror into their hearts." You think there is no terror in Quran? It's called [word unclear] read it in the 56th Surah of the Quran. There's no lack of translation, there's no mistranslation There's not one Sheikh says one thing, no, it's very clear. 'When you fight, you strike terror into the heart of the disbeliever.'"

He has a website promoting a past book, Judaiology, which features an excerpt describing "the inordinacy of Jewish power." Jews, he wrote, are "an amazing people who can steal you blind as you watch. If you discover the theft, they can put you to sleep. If you wake up to them, they can put you back to sleep with mind games, tricks of fancy, smoke screens, and magic. Henry Ford almost uncovered them."

Umar's ISNA appearance Sunday afternoon promoted his latest book, Jews for Salaam: The Straight Path to Global Peace. In discussing it, Umar first thanked ISNA for inviting him to speak.

He then described a distinction between "holy Jews," who are devout, apolitical and poor, and "unholy Jews" who are greedy, conniving and all powerful. He looked to the White House for an example:

"You need to know that Obama, the first man that Obama picked when we were so happy that he was the President, he picked an Israeli – Rahm Emanuel – his number one man. His number two man – [David] Axelrod – another Israeli person. Why do this small number of people have control of the world? You need to go back into your history and find out about France and Germany and England and America got together and offered the Israelites, who became the Israelites, they offered them Ghana, the plains of Ghana. Why don't you take Ghana since we beat you down so badly? That's what the Holocaust was all about. You need to read my chapter on the Holocaust and the anti-Holocaust movement. There's some people in the world says no Holocaust even happened. Some of their leaders say no Holocaust even happened. Well it did happen. These people were punished. They were punished for a reason because they were serially disobedient to Allah." [Emphasis added]

ISNA described the author's panel as "an interactive session which provides a wonderful platform to learn, share ideas, and provide literary contributions to society." Remarkably, ISNA included Umar in that platform despite a very public record of anti-Semitism, advocacy for jihad, and praise for the 9/11 hijackers.

Umar shared the microphone with another author who did not spew out bigotry, but who did cast Hezbollah as an innocent player subject to incessant Israeli onslaught. Cathy Sultan described her book, Tragedy in South Lebanon: The Israeli/Hezbollah War of 2006, as a history of "the tragedy of the repeated incursions and wars in South Lebanon, the complexities of the Lebanese politics."

She made no mention of Iranian funding for Hezbollah or Syrian meddling in Lebanese politics or its suspected involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Instead, she lumps Hariri among a list of "docile Arab rulers willing to acquiesce to the West and to Israelis' demands ... provided they eliminate or at least contain and disarm Hamas and Hezbollah."

Nor did Sultan describe indiscriminate Hezbollah rocket fire toward Israeli civilian communities, or the cross-border attack on an Israeli army base by Hezbollah that left three soldiers dead and two others kidnapped.

In response to a question, Sultan said "Hezbollah still serves a role. I think that Lebanon is still under constant threat from its southern neighbor. And I see nothing wrong, as long as Hezbollah abides by certain rules and regulations; I see no reason why Hezbollah should not remained armed."

The United States considers Hezbollah to be a terrorist group, and some experts consider it a bigger potential threat to the United States than Al-Qaeda.

The panel did not feature anyone with contrasting viewpoints to challenge Sultan or Umar. The program drew about 50 people, who sat passively during most of the remarks.
Umar's books were available for purchase at the convention. Government agencies were represented with booths of their own, including the departments of Justice, State, Homeland Security, Commerce, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Before the convention started, ISNA posted a statement for vendors which said "Any literature (fundraising or otherwise) is restricted to the assigned booth and must be pre-approved in writing by ISNA, in ISNA's sole and absolute discretion. Book selling vendors must complete enclosed form providing inventory of the literature to be sold at ISNA."

Judaiology devotes a chapter to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," allegedly the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders at the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, in which they plotted to take over the world. Researchers have definitively proved that the Protocols were in fact forged in Paris sometime between 1895 and 1899 by an agent of the Russian secret police. This has not kept anti-Semitic groups from believing the validity of this forgery. For example, the Charter of Hamas states:

"For Zionist scheming has no end, and after Palestine they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates. Only when they have completed digesting the area on which they will have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion, etc. Their scheme has been laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there."

To Umar, however, the Protocols "remain a mystery:"
"Jewish leaders have denied [the Protocols] and called them a forgery, a pact [sic] of lies, absurd and counterintuitive. No Jew, they say, would ever resort to writing down such self-defeating words and plans. However their denials appear ineffective because the Protocols actually explain and reveal what others observe about the real activities and results of Jewish diplomatic, industrial, business, and political involvement among the peoples of the world... What is revealed and clarified is so shocking and stunningly in accord with the behavior and results of world events that involve Jews that it gives credence and importance, relevance and standing to what otherwise would simply be a biased and discredited documents."

A woman in the audience reminded Umar that Jews marched with Black people during the Civil Rights movement. But, Umar said, that was not motivated by a genuine desire for justice:
"The Jews in America used the black community to advance the Jewish community. In many instances in history, they gained much of what they gained by putting the African Americans out front to get things that were necessary to get through the politics of this country and of the social setting of this country."

Umar also managed to stray into a reference about same-sex marriage, which he said would prompt God's wrath:

"It's against the laws of Allah and against the laws of the Bible for homosexuality. And if you think the Quran talks about harsh punishment from Allah, you should read what the Bible says. I don't have the time to go into it, but it's in my book. The Bible is very hard on, he says, Allah says that the land itself is doomed. You wonder why things are happening in America are going to happen? You think that Katrina was just a blow of wind?"

This is the man responsible for the Muslim chaplain program in New York prisons for 20 years. He was forced out of that job after his praise for the 9/11 hijackers became known. This is who ISNA chose to showcase in a "meet the authors" panel and provide an unchallenged platform.
"My conclusion is that there should be more jihad," he said. "But people don't want to hear that. They're scared."

In Cairo, the President said:

"Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong" and a hindrance to peace. [Emphasis added]
But somehow, partnering with a group that invites the same thing is okay?

Shariah Law in the West

This video deal with the encroachment of Shariah law in the West. I have written about this before, but here Dick Morris gives an update worth watching.

Watch Video

Tuesday, July 7, 2009


I don't know why, but looking at this picture, I couldn't help but see the tiny symbol of the Republican Party as an emblem for the the situation of the GOP today. Tiny an defenseless, in a few years this baby elephant will turn into a powerful, beautiful creature. And so will the Republican Party emerge more powerful than ever, and ready to undo the damage that Obama and the democrats are doing this country.

Interesting Articles


We are being told about the Canadian healthcare system as a model to emulate in the US. Read this article and see what a bureaucracy can do. Lucky for the Canadians, they have the United States south of the border to help the victims of Canadian healthcare providers. We will have only Mexico and Canada. Scary.
Read Article

Colombian delegation condemns the destruction of Qunaitra by Israel. Of course, this Syrian town was returned to Syria 35 years ago, and the destruction took place during a war. To understand why Qunaitra was not rebuilt:
Read Article

Still confused about Honduras?
Read Article

107,000 cases of Swine Flu in Argentina. The Kirchner administration is handling the crisis as well all other crises plaguing this poor nation. This means that the number of death due to the pandemic will continue to increase.
Read Article
With the following quote from Obama, we have found a new method for destr0ying our enemies: "The future does not belong to those who gather armies on a field of battle or bury missiles in the ground." Our enemies will read this and die laughing.

Monday, July 6, 2009

140 Dead in China. No Big Deal



Riots in China caused by tensions between ethnic Muslims and Han Chinese left 140 dead. No reports are offered by the government controlled media as to how many of the dead are Uighur.

Let us imagine that these riots had occurred in Israel, France, England or the United States between Muslims and non-Muslims with 140 dead. How would the media have reported these events? I somehow doubt that the reports would have been as restrained, indifferent and condescending as they have been so far with respect to China.

I am pointing this simply to show the double standard that exists depending on the location of events. A Palestinian killed by Israelis merits page one in every important newspaper. 140 dead in China is business as usual.

Perhaps in addition to importing every conceivable crap from China, we should also import their media manipulators. They are almost as good as Obama's.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Worth Reading

Teaching grammar could lead to better placement of colons.

We must emulate Sweden's health care.

I'll bet the A/C was not working right.

Argentine ants show the world how to live in peace and harmony.

If this doesn't convince you that Al Gore is full of it, nothing will.

Hamas' Security Force fot the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice



A Palestinian female journalist complained over the weekend that Hamas policemen attempted to arrest her under the pretext that she came to a Gaza beach dressed immodestly and was seen laughing in public.

The journalist, Asma al-Ghul, said that the policemen instead confiscated her passport. Since the incident, she added, she has been afraid to leave her home, especially after receiving death threats from anonymous callers.

“They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend and failing to wear a hijab,” Ghul told a human rights organization in the Gaza Strip. “They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine.”
In a phone interview with the Dubai-based Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news Web site, the journalist said that the policemen who stopped her belonged to the Hamas government’s Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice security force.

The special force reports directly to the Ministry of Waqf Affairs and is said to be a copy of units that have long been operating in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

The Hamas government, according to local reporters, has refrained from publicly admitting that the force exists out of fear of being branded fundamentalist.

The Hamas force consists of dozens of plainclothes police officers who patrol beaches, public gardens, restaurants, hair salons and coffee shops to make sure that males and females are not mixing together and that the women are dressed modestly.

Ghul said that many Palestinian women have noticed the presence of the police officers at the beaches and other sites. She said that the talk in the Gaza Strip these days was about Hamas’s intention to impose the hijab on all female school children from first to 12th grade.

She said she was astonished by the fact that the Hamas security forces were providing security to hotels that are frequented by women wearing miniskirts while at the same time targeting “common people” who go to the beaches and public parks.

Ghul said that Hamas has banned men in the Gaza Strip from swimming topless. “And as in my case, Hamas has banned women from laughing while swimming,” she added.

She and her friends were stopped by Hamas policemen while swimming in the sea. She said that the policemen confiscated her passport and laptop after accusing her of laughing loudly and appearing in immodest clothes in a public place.

Two of her male friends were detained for questioning for three hours. They said the police officers beat them and abused them verbally before releasing them.

Hamas security commanders initially said that the journalist and her friends were stopped because they were having a mixed party at the beach. Later, one of the commanders said that Ghul was stopped because she was not wearing a hijab while swimming. Another commander claimed that the journalist and her friends were stopped because they had been seeing smoking nargilas and partying in a public place.

Islam Shahwan, spokesman for the Hamas security forces, said that policemen have been deployed at the beaches at the request of the Ministry for Waqf Affairs. He said the policemen’s task is to impose law and order and prevent harassment of families picnicking and swimming at the beaches.

“We are there for the safety of the people,” he said. “We operate there to prevent men from harassing women. We’ve received many complaints about these negative practices.”
Shahwan said that Hamas does not interfere with the way women want to dress. However, he stressed, “we must preserve our Islamic culture and traditions. If there’s a woman who wants to dress as she wishes, she must go to a private swimming pool and not to a public place.”

Thanks for the tip Israellycool.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Friday, July 3, 2009

Worth Reading

Please remove the child from this weird environment.
Read Article

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Although I disagree with most of the goals of the Obama administration, I must admit that I admire the way they manipulate the flow of news and the selective statistics presented to support whatever information is released. Two examples show why it is important to have an analysis of every bit of information released by the White House.

First we have the canard that Medicare is actually more efficient than private health insurance companies. To support this, we are offered the fact that Medicare spends 2% on administrative costs as opposed to insurance companies who spend 12% on the same type of cost. On the face of it, the percentages are correct, but only because these numbers are reached by using the percentage of cost over the total expenditures. Thus, Medicare, which deals with elderly patients in the last years of their lives, spends more on each patient and the administrative cost is less. Let’s simplify this by using concrete numbers.

Assume that an insurance company has 100 customers of all ages, while Medicare has 100 who are 65 or older and we need $1200 worth of employees to deal with the paperwork of the insurance companies and $2,000 for Medicare. And now let us assume that we spend $100 per privately insured patient and $800 for those on Medicare.

The private insurance company spends $10,000 on their customers with a payroll of $1200 on employees. The percentage on administrative cost is 12%.

Medicare, on the other hand spends $100,000 and $2,000 on payroll, giving it 2% expenditure.

It takes no mathematical genius to see that the more efficient Medicare ends up screwing the taxpayer.

The next canard came yesterday when Obama used California as an example of energy efficiency when he stated, "Californians consume 40 percent less energy per person than the national average."

Again, the devil is in the details.

California has a temperate climate that leads to less consumption of electricity than Buffalo, NY or Miami, Fla., with the result that homes consume less heat in the winter and less air conditioning in the summer.

In addition, Obama used the fewer number of Californian power plants as an example of its efficiency. The little detail that he very carefully neglected to mention was that California imports 20% of the electricity it consumes from states without its environmental restrictions.

When Helen Thomas begins to question the flow of information form the White House, it is time for the rest of the press to start doing their homework.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Important Readings

Daniel Pipes reports on CAIR and its proselytizing activities in the USA.

Read Article

An important article in Haaretz explains how Jews are losing their grip in cities with large Arab populations such as Nazareth, Jaffa, Acre and Ramble. This is particularly interesting in light of Arab refusal to have Jewish settlers living in the West Bank.

Read Article

The Middle East Forum reports on the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit against investigative reporter Joe Kaufman.

Read Article