You Decide

Always decide for yourself whether anything posted in my blog has any information you choose to keep.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

 

Cat care article for you cat lovers

This came in email and although I haven't had cats for years due to allergies feel this article presents some good advice for people who do have cats.

When I did have cats, remember being cautioned by vets to feed food which DO NOT CONTAIN SOY FLOUR OR MEAL because soy contains too much magnesium for cats and can lead to serious urinary tract problems, which if not corrected can lead to a painful death.

Also a friend who still has a cat puts an opened clean garbage bag in the litter box then pours fresh litter into that.  They then fold the bag down the sides and tuck it under the litter pan.  That facilitates easy litter removal at change time where litter pans don't have to be scrubbed every time prior to refilling.  Clean litter ... happy cat.


"FELINE INAPPROPRIATE URINATION

FELINE INAPPROPRIATE URINATION:

The term 'inappropriate urination' is relatively self-explanatory.  It refers to cats who urinate on surfaces and in places that are not considered appropriate by their owners.  Basically, except for the few indoor cats that use household toilets, it is only considered appropriate for cats to urinate in a litter box.  Urinating on the couch, bed, wall, rugs, and ceramic tile, or in the bath tub, laundry basket, or kitchen sink is just not appropriate!

Inappropriate urination is, unfortunately, too common.  All of us have known of cats with this unwanted habit.  Many of the cats are labeled as lost causes and either pushed out the door to become outside cats or given up to animal shelters.  But the vast majority of these cats can be helped.  With a little detective work, the underlying cause can be found.  Once the cause is uncovered, appropriate treatment strategies can be implemented and the cats can be taught to reuse their litter boxes.

Consider inappropriate urination a message from the cat.  Something is wrong and the cat is letting you know.  The cat is not 'acting out', but asking for help.  I have yet to meet a cat that did not, as a kitten, use a litter box.  I have taken in feral cats and kittens ranging in age from one day to many years, and each and everyone have used a litter box.  Even the youngest, motherless kitten will rapidly grasp the use of a litter box when placed in one.  This is because cats have a natural affinity for sandy substrates.  They want to dig in soil before they eliminate.  They do not naturally choose flat, smooth, or cloth-like surfaces. 

So if cats naturally use a litter box, and then decide to stop, something must have gone wrong.  The cats are not spiteful, angry, or mean; something has gone awry.  The list of problems that can push a cat out of the litter box and towards inappropriate urination is a long and potentially complicated one.  The list can be divided into management, medical, and behavioral causes. 

Medical reasons include any illness or disease that causes the cat to be in pain or increases urine production.  So a bladder infection, with accompanying urinary tract pain, can certainly cause the cat to associate the box with the pain and lead to urination outside of the box.  Other causes of pain might include bladder stones, inflammation, or tumors, as well as arthritis, muscle disease, or spinal cord pain that interferes with movement in and out of the box.  All painful incidences associated with the box may result in failure to use it.  Additional medical causes would include cognitive diseases that impair the mental abilities of older cats.  A final category of medical illnesses include all those that lead to increased urine production, such as kidney disease, diabetes, and thyroid problems.  The greater the urine production, the more often the cat must urinate.  This upsets the cat's routine and soils the box more rapidly than expected, ultimately causing the cat to abandon the box.

Every single cat that inappropriately urinates should be examined by a veterinarian as soon as possible.  Illnesses need to be caught early in order for appropriate therapy to work and to prevent the inappropriate urination from becoming habit.  Cats are known to hide disease.  Inappropriate urination may be the cat's only notice to you that the he is sick.  Heed the warning and rule out medical causes before blaming the cat for 'bad behavior'.

Another major cause of inappropriate urination is poor litter box management which results in cats having an aversion to the box, the litter, or the location.  These cats may then develop a preference for a different location or surface.  Owners often have boxes that are too small, too few, too dirty, left in incorrect places, or filled with litter which feels or smells bad to the cat.  No cat likes a small, dirty, noisy box.  Your cat's inappropriate urination may be the cat's method of telling you this.  When purchasing, placing, and filling litter boxes, think of the cat's needs before your own. 

Different cats have different needs.  Some cats need boxes with low sides or high sides, or ones that are open-sided or covered with a lid.  Some have aversions to scented litter, or clumping litter, or unscented litter, or the chemicals in the plastic box.  So buying the smallest, covered box for a 15 pound cat will not work.  Neither will buying the deepest, self-cleaning box for a timid, 1.5 pound kitten.  And putting a box down two flights of stairs may invite trouble from a 19 year old arthritic cat.  While we are on the subject of boxes, litters, and locations, I can pretty well guarantee that you can cause inappropriate urination by putting a litter box next to a washing machine that hits the spin cycle just at the cat tries to use the box.  A litter pan near a washing machine or dryer is an invitation for disaster.

To prevent litter box aversion, make sure your cat likes her box.  Identify your cat's needs and meet them.  Trial and error may be needed to find the appropriate mix of box, litter, and location; but it's worth the effort in the long run.  Litter type, depth, and fragrance are all variables that can be adjusted.  So try different types of litter, including clumping and non-clumping, scented and non-scented, and litters made of wheat or paper.  Also, experiment with covered and uncovered boxes, self-cleaning litter trays, and round or rectangular pans. 

Purchase multiple boxes for multi-cat households.  The rule of thumb is one box per cat, plus one extra box.  So a household with four cats need five boxes, preferably in separate locations.  This may sound excessive, but it is much easier to manage the boxes than a cat urinating on the pillows!  If may even be necessary to have different types of boxes and different litters for the different cats.

Lack of litter cleanliness is a significant cause of inappropriate urination.  Cats do NOT like dirty litter boxes.  Their noses work much better than human noses, so they can detect unpleasant odors that people ignore.  Some cats are so offended by dirty litter that they will even avoid boxes used by other cats.  Some will try to keep their bodies out of the box and urinate over the edge.  Some will gingerly step in the box and then urinate out of it, or urinate just next to the box.  These cats are telling you very clearly that they do not like the litter in the box.  They are attempting to use the pan, but are just too repulsed by the litter to use it appropriately.  If the situation is not remedied rapidly, these cats may soon avoid the entire litter box.

Heeding the cat's pleas can help prevent inappropriate urination.  The litter pans must be as clean as possible.  Daily scooping should be considered the minimum requirement.  It is actually wiser to scoop boxes as often as they are used, even if this is two, three, or four times a day.  I realize that everyone knows of an owner that only cleans boxes once per week and the cats are just fine.  Do not assume this will work for your cat and do not get comfortable with this system.  At any time an individual cat may react to a filthy litter pan by choosing to urinate outside of the box.  It is easier to prevent the problem with frequent cleanings than to attempt to remedy it.

Plastic litter boxes also hold odors, so boxes should be dumped and washed out weekly.  Use a mild detergent, rinse thoroughly, and then dry the box before refilling.  The pans may even need to be replaced periodically, as it is impossible to get rid of the accumulated odors that eventually permeate the plastic.  Actually, this is a good reason to avoid saving old litter boxes from previous cats for new arrivals.  The new cat can still detect the odors from the old cat and may refuse to use the old box.  So, the second rule of thumb is that new cats should always get new litter boxes. 

Litter box aversion can be prevented with proper planning.  Start off correctly by purchasing fine, unscented litter and placing it one to two inches deep in a clean box.  Most cats like large, uncovered boxes, as the odors are not trapped in the box and the cat can see out of the box.  Place the box in a quiet area that is separated from the food area and away from machinery.  Pick quiet, easy-to-access locations.  Avoid damp, dank spots (wet basements) that hold odors and keep the litter moist.  Avoid litter box liners, if possible, as many cats dislike them.  Keep the box clean and dry, change litter as needed, and make sure that all the cats have easy access to all the boxes.

If all litter box management issues and medical issues are handled, and a cat demonstrates inappropriate urination, behavioral causes need to be explored.  It this is the case, it is important to seek help quickly.  The longer the problem continues, the more difficult it is to treat and the longer the problem takes to resolve.  Cats will rapidly develop preferences for inappropriate places because the surface and location are more pleasing than the litter pan.  The problem then becomes more difficult to solve, as the cat now has both a behavioral issue and a preference for the wrong spot.

Behavioral issues are as varied as cats.  Often the detective work involves an in-depth knowledge of cat behavior.  Owners may not be able to identify the problem and may need help from outside sources.  Pet behaviorists, veterinarians, and board-certified veterinary behaviorists can be of great help.  They may interview owners, examine the cat, and even visit the house to uncover the root of the problem.  A common example of behavioral issues would be a cat that is too frightened to use the box because other cats terrorize her both in and out of the box.  Another example is a cat that suddenly becomes territorial when he sees a stray cat outside.  The indoor cat cannot reach the outdoor cat to claim his territory, so he urinates near the door.  Other cats have been known to stop using their boxes when antique furniture or old carpets stained with urine from previous animals are brought into the house.  Others are upset by new pets, new adults, or new babies.  Some are reacting to tension or fighting within the household.  The list goes on and on.

Treatment relates to the specific cause and can be a simple as adding additional litter boxes, closing the blinds so a cat cannot see outside, or getting rid of old, soiled furniture and carpets.  Others standard 'fixes' include using enzyme cleaners to clean up any accidents and remove odors.  In addition, it is helpful to cover inappropriate areas with plastic carpet runners, sheets of plastic, tin foil, or other items with textures that the cats find unappealing.  Make sure to close doors to keep cats away from rooms and furniture they wish to use as litter box.  Cover the bases of plants with tinfoil or wire mesh to keep out curious cats.  The use of soothing pheromones, such as Feliway, may also be helpful for cats suffering from anxiety.  Some cats also respond positively to special litter attracting agents made from soil and herbs.  Finally, some cats need anti-anxiety medications available from veterinarians.

Punishment should not be used.  Hitting, screaming, and rubbing the cat's nose on the soiled areas is ineffective and inhumane.  These actions will increase the cat's anxiety, teach it to run from you, and most likely make the problem worse.  The cat will not connect your behaviors with his actions and simply learn to avoid you, along with the litter box.  In addition, your behavior may increase the cat's nervousness and create additional troubles.  If your cat is urinating inappropriately, seek creative management solutions, not punishments.

A similar, but different problem involves cats that spray.  The issue with these cats is not the use of the litter box, but urine marking.  Cats that spray inappropriately deposit small drops of urine in a specific area.  Usually they are standing when they do this and back up to a spot, wiggle their tail, and release small amounts of urine on vertical surfaces.  Cats that spray are communicating with other cats.  They may be announcing their presence, making or keeping their territories, or looking for a mate.  Most cats that spray are un-neutered males.  A few are un-spayed females, spayed females, and neutered males.

Because spraying is a territorial sign, the incidence of this behavior goes up in multi-cat households or houses with feral cats roaming the yard.  Cats also spray if they think their territory is invaded, so a new cat, baby, roommate, furniture, or even carpeting may trigger spraying.  Illness, lack of appropriate exercise, isolation, and inactivity may also lead to spraying.

Treatment for spraying is similar to that for inappropriate urination, with one notable exception.  Since hormonal influences drive intact male cats to spray, any intact male cat that sprays should be neutered immediately.  The sooner this is done, the sooner the problem will resolve.  Since indoor cats are typically neutered, this should not be a problem for most owners.  Other treatments include separating the cat from the preferred spraying area, covering the area with plastic or tinfoil, and the use of pheromones or medications to ease anxiety. 

Territorial issues can be helped by reducing an indoor cat's ability to see outdoor cats and by increasing the space allotted to interior territories.  Obviously, you cannot make a house bigger.  But you can increase the space each cat calls his  own.  Make room vertically by clearing off shelves and adding cat furniture that allows the cat to climb up.  Add horizontal hiding places with boxes, a few open drawers or closets, and cat furniture.  Anything that allows the cat to move into more areas will decrease pressure to defend the territory and may reduce spraying.

The bottom line is that a variety of environmental, behavioral, and medical causes can lead to inappropriate urination and/or spraying.  It is up to the owner to take immediate action to uncover the cause, eliminate it, and take appropriate steps to get the cat back into the box.  This may take time, consultation with professionals, changes in household management, and considerable effort.  The good news is that the vast majority of cats can be helped.

Sincerely,


Dr. Jane Leon  "


Wednesday, August 30, 2006

 

Immigration Report Cards

"Report Card Locator Map
SUBJECT: Overall increases through immigration

Click on the state of the delegation or Member of Congress whose grades you wish you inspect!

 

[Need Internet Explorer for this to work]

 

http://grades.betterimmigration.com/

 


Tuesday, August 29, 2006

 

"Fair Tax News

Fair Tax Book  (live link)
Here's your link for ordering the soft-cover edition from Amazon.com
____________
[Emphasis added mine] 

"FAIRTAX NEWS

Neal Boortz

"Sometime in the next few weeks those in charge of the Republican campaign this Fall will be deciding whether or not to make the FairTax a prominent part of the campaign agenda.  In the meantime, the FairTax continues to draw much attention both inside the Beltway and in newspaper and magazine editorials, columns and stories.

My search engine spat out an article  http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0083.html  that appeared on an Internet site called "Atlanta Progressive News" this morning.  This article was typical of the tactic that Democrats have chosen to use to combat this tax reform idea.  That tactic?  Lies.  Simple as that.

This is perhaps my biggest surprise since co-authoring The FairTax Book with Congressman John Linder.  In order to critique the FairTax plan opponents find it absolutely necessary to either re-write H.R. 25 and then criticize the FairTax Bill as they have re-written it (the approach used by the president's tax reform commission) or they just simply flat-out lie about the FairTax without first going through their re-write process.

Here's a paragraph from the article"

"Linder's extremist plan would create a disproportionate burden on the poor to finance government, while letting the rich pay only a tiny fraction of their wealth, and possibly bankrupting the federal government."

OK ... let's see.  "A disproportionate burden on the poor"?  Even the tax reform commission said that the FairTax was the only tax reform idea out there that completely un-taxed the poor in this country.  Isn't that odd?  The president's tax reform commission said the FairTax completely un-taxes the poor, and the Progressive News says that it would create a disproportionate burden on the poor.  And what is the truth?  Under the FairTax the so-called "poor" would pay no federal income tax, no social security tax, no Medicare tax, no capital gains tax ... none of it.  The consumer goods they buy would cost essentially the same as they did under the old income tax scheme, and they would receive the prebate that would completely reimburse them for the sales tax they pay on all purchases right up to the poverty level.  Now that is what the Progressive News calls a disproportionate burden on the poor.

Moving on ...

What about the "...letting the rich pay only a fraction of their wealth ..." line?  Guess what?  We have a federal income tax, folks.  Not a wealth tax.  The rich don't pay taxes on their wealth now ... just on their income.  Many rich people are out of the income-earning business now and have been for quite some time.  They dip into their pool of wealth and spend a million bucks for a motor home and the federal government gets nothing.  Not so under the FairTax.  The motor home will still cost around a million bucks ... but $230,000 of it goes to the federal government.  This is what Progressive News calls " ... letting the rich pay only a fraction of their wealth."  Finally we have a tax reform idea that actually taxes wealth!  And the left ignores it. 

Now this next line from the Progressive News is entirely predictable.  They refer to the FairTax as a 30% sales tax.  Let's see ... you buy something for $100 and $23 goes to the federal government.  Now when I went to a government school $23 was 23% of $100.  Things may have changed in the way we teach math ... but I think that old rule still holds. 

I've explained this all before ... but the FairTax is calculated as an inclusive sales tax because that is the way we calculate income taxes.  Simply put, if you earn $1000 and you're in a 25% tax bracket, you pay $250 in taxes.  If you spend $1000 and the FairTax rate is 23% you pay $230 in taxes.

So why do opponents like to quote the 30% rate for the FairTax but not for the income tax?  Very simple.  Because they favor the income tax over the FairTax.  They like the way that the income tax can be used for social engineering.  They love the fact that under the income tax favors can be granted to friends while punishment can be meted out to enemies.  So they quote the income tax at it's correct inclusive rate while quoting the FairTax at a false exclusive rate.  They know that the American people aren't exactly bright enough to discern the difference ... so the tactic works for them.

Why do these people hate the FairTax so?  The FairTax accomplishes several goals dear to the left for decades.  It un-taxes the poor and taxes wealth!  What's not to love?

It's just this simple.  Take a look at the people who love the FairTax, and the people who loath it.  You will  find that those who love the idea have an appreciation of their sense of individuality and want to handle much of the responsibility for their own lives.  Those who oppose the FairTax generally disdain the idea of individualism and feel that America is great because of its government.  Since the passage of the FairTax would constitute the largest transfer of power from government to the people in the history of our Republic, it is something that the left must fight.  "

http://boortz.com/nuze/200608/08292006.html#fairtax


Monday, August 28, 2006

 

video "Immigration Gumballs"

Excellent video deals with lowering yearly immigration quotas due to environment, infrastructure impact .  Great illustrations, easy to follow.


"Immigration Gumballs"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5871651411393887069&q=immigration&hl=en

 


Monday, August 28, 2006

 

Un broadcast Israeli troop movement to Hezbollah

Given the revelation that over time Sharia law has been tightly interwoven into UN "rules" this comes as absolutely no surprise. 

UN is supposed to sponsor democracy ..... Sharia is not democracy, and to have given Hezbollah the heads up on where Israeli troops were amounts to war crimes. 

Wonder if they'll try themselves for war crimes???????????????????????????????  Naah, the fox loves being in the hen house making up rules as it goes along.


"What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
You broadcast Israeli troop movements.
by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
09/04/2006, Volume 011, Issue 47
Source The Weekly Standard


"DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops,
 
provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies.

Sure enough, a review of every single UNIFIL web posting during the war shows that, while UNIFIL was daily revealing the towns where Israeli soldiers were located, the positions from which they were firing, and when and how they had entered Lebanese territory, it never described Hezbollah movements or locations with any specificity whatsoever.

Compare the vague "various locations" language with this UNIFIL posting from July 25:

Yesterday and during last night, the IDF moved significant reinforcements, including a number of tanks, armored personnel carriers, bulldozers and infantry, to the area of Marun Al Ras inside Lebanese territory. The IDF advanced from that area north toward Bint Jubayl, and south towards Yarun.

Or with the posting on July 24, in which UNIFIL revealed that the IDF stationed between Marun Al Ras and Bint Jubayl were "significantly reinforced during the night and this morning with a number of tanks and armored personnel carriers."

This partiality is inconsistent not only with UNIFIL's mission but also with its own stated policies. In a telling incident just a few years back, UNIFIL vigorously insisted on its "neutral ity"--at Israel's expense.

 

On October 7, 2000, three IDF soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah just yards from a UNIFIL shelter and dragged across the border into Lebanon, where they disappeared. The U.N. was thought to have videotaped the incident or its immediate aftermath. Rather than help Israel rescue its kidnapped soldiers by providing this evidence, however, the U.N. obstructed the Israeli investigation.

 

 

For months the Israeli government pleaded with the U.N. to turn over any videotape that might shed light on the location and condition of its missing men. And for nine months the U.N. stonewalled, insisting first that no such tape existed, then that just one tape existed, and eventually conceding that there were two more tapes. During those nine months, clips from the videotapes were shown on Syrian and Lebanese television.

Explaining their eventual about-face, U.N. officials said the decision had been made by the on-site commanders that it was not their responsibility to provide the material to Israel; indeed, that to do so would violate the peacekeeping mandate, which required "full impartiality and objectivity." The U.N. report on the incident was adamant that its force had "to ensure that military and other sensitive information remains in their domain and is not passed to parties to a conflict."

Stymied in its efforts to recover the men while they were still alive, Israel ultimately agreed to an exchange in January 2004: It released 429 Arab prisoners and detainees, among them convicted terrorists, and the bodies of 60 Lebanese decedents and members of Hezbollah, in exchange
 
for the bodies of the three soldiers. Blame for the deaths of those three Israelis can be laid, at least in part, at the feet of the U.N., which went to the wall defending its inviolable pledge never to share military intelligence about one party with another.

UNIFIL has just done what it then vowed it could never do. Once again, it has acted to shield one side in the conflict and to harm the other. Why is this permitted? For that matter, how did the U.N. obtain such detailed and timely military intelligence in the first place, before broadcasting it for Israel's enemies to see?

Lori Lowenthal Marcus is president of the Zionist Organization of America, Greater Philadelphia District.  "

 

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/622bqwjn.asp


Sunday, August 27, 2006

 

Smart Jury (joke)

My cousin sent me this.


Smart Jury 

In a criminal justice system based on 12 individuals not smart
enough to get out of jury duty, here is a jury to be proud of!!!

A defendant was on trial for murder. There was strong evidence
indicating guilt, but there was no corpse. In the defense's closing
statement the lawyer, knowing that his client would probably be
convicted, resorted to a trick. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I
have a surprise for you all," the lawyer said as he looked at his
watch. "Within one minute, the person presumed dead in this case
will walk into this courtroom."

He looked toward the courtroom door. The jurors, somewhat stunned,
all looked on eagerly. A minute passed. Nothing happened.

Finally the lawyer said, "Actually, I made up the previous
statement. But you all looked on with anticipation. I, therefore,
put it to you that you have a reasonable doubt in this case as to
whether anyone was killed, and I insist that you return a verdict of
not guilty."

The jury, clearly confused, retired to deliberate.  A few minutes
later, the jury returned and pronounced a verdict of guilty.

"But how?" inquired the lawyer. "You must have had some doubt; I saw
all of you stare at the door."

The jury foreman replied: "Yes, we did look, but your client didn't."


Saturday, August 26, 2006

 

"Hail to the Chief

From Powerlineblog.com ..... if you remember I've never thought Pres. Bush was dumb. 

 
"Hail to the Chief

 

I had the opportunity this afternoon to be part of a relatively small group who heard President Bush talk, extemporaneously, for around forty minutes. It was an absolutely riveting experience. It was the best I've ever seen him. Not only that; it may have been the best I've ever seen any politician. If I summarized what he said, it would all sound familiar: the difficult times we live in; the threat from Islamic fascism--the phrase drew an enthusiastic round of applause--the universal yearning for freedom; the need to confront evil now, with all the tools at our disposal, so that our children and grandchildren can live in a better and safer world. As he often does, the President structured his comments loosely around a tour of the Oval Office. But the digressions and interpolations were priceless.

The conventional wisdom is that Bush is not a very good speaker. But up close, he is a great communicator, in a way that, in my opinion, Ronald Reagan was not. He was by turns instructive, persuasive, and funny. His persona is very much that of the big brother. Above all, he was impassioned. I have never seen a politician speak so evidently from the heart, about big issues--freedom, most of all.

I've sometimes worried about how President Bush can withstand the Washington snake pit and deal with a daily barrage of hate from the ignorant left that, in my opinion, dwarfs in both volume and injustice the abuse directed against any prior President. (No one accused Lincoln of planning the attack on Fort Sumter.) Not to worry. He is, of course, miles above his mean-spirited liberal critics. More than that, he clearly derives real joy from the opportunity to serve as President and to participate in the great pageant of American history. And he sees himself as anything but a lame duck, which is why he is stumping for Republican candidates around the country.

It was, in short, the most inspiring forty minutes I've experienced in politics."  Posted by John at 08:25 PM

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015081.php

"Hail to the chief, take 2

 

On the heels of John's eyewitness account of President Bush speaking extemporaneously before a friendly group in Minnesota yesterday afternoon comes Kathleen Parker's column with her own eyewitness account of President Bush at an off-the-record luncheon with a hundred or so supporters. Like John, Parker was impressed:

What I witnessed was revealing. Not only was the man fluent in the English language and intellectually agile, he was knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects raised during a 90-minute Q&A. Someone apparently had been slipping intellectual-curiosity tablets into Bush's cola.

Toward the end, one of the guests said, "Mr. President, I think if Americans could hear you speak the way you have today, you'd have a 95 percent approval rating."

I think that's almost true. Not 95 percent, obviously, but he'd surely have a higher than 30 percent approval rating were he better able to explain what he's thinking. Bush does know; he just can't seem to say.

Why? Parker has a theory:
My theory dovetails with something one of his most acerbic critics, columnist Molly Ivins, once wrote: "George W. Bush sounds like English is his second language.'' That's because it's true. "Washington English'' is a second language for Bush; "Texas English'' is his first.

When he tries to speak Washington English, which is the way Bush thinks presidents are supposed to speak -- over-enunciating and sprinkling his comments with awkward aphorisms -- he fumbles. He forgets what he's saying because the thoughts and words are not his own.

This is also when his annoying sibilance kicks in. The "terroristsssssss," he says when "terrorists" would do. My guess is he over-enunciates to cover his prairie accent, but the effect is, well, sssssstrange.

Tapes of Bush as governor of Texas reveal none of the malapropisms for which he is now infamous. That's because in Texas, he speaks his native tongue -- dropping syllables and esses without fear of criticism or embarrassment. That kind of freedom seems to liberate the man's mind and his mouth.

Anyone who speaks before cameras knows the taste of humility and can relate to the agony of being George Bush.

(I can relate.) During the Reagan administration, occasionally discouraged conservative supporters theorized that Reagan was the victim of misguided advisers and counseled "Let Reagan be Reagan." Taken together, John and Parker make a compelling case to explain the mystery of George Bush: "Let Bush be Bush!"    Posted by John at 08:25 PM
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015087.php

Saturday, August 26, 2006

 

"Texas Sheriffs Say Terrorists Entering US from Mexico

Why we need the border welded shut yesterday. 

Contact your senators, representatives and demand action NOW. 

Amnesty means letting our guard down for these guys, too.


"Texas Sheriffs Say Terrorists Entering US from Mexico
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 21, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - The chief law enforcement officers of several Texas counties along the southern U.S. border warn that Arabic-speaking individuals are learning Spanish and integrating into Mexican culture before paying smugglers to sneak them into the United States. The Texas Sheriffs' Border Coalition believes those individuals are likely terrorists and that drug cartels and some members of the Mexican military are helping them get across the border.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, Texas told Cybercast News Service that Iranian currency, military badges in Arabic, jackets and other clothing are among the items that have been discovered along the banks of the Rio Grande River. The sheriff also said there are a substantial number of individuals crossing the southern border into the U.S. who are not Mexican. He described the individuals in question as well-funded and able to pay so-called "coyotes" - human smugglers - large sums of money for help gaining illegal entry into the U.S.

Although many of the non-Mexican illegal aliens are fluent in Spanish, Gonzalez said they speak with an accent that is not native.

"It's clear these people are coming in for reasons other than employment," Gonzalez said.

That sentiment is shared by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.).

"For years, Muslims and other 'Special Interest Aliens' from places other than Mexico have been streaming into the U.S. across our porous border," Tancredo told Cybercast News Service. "These people are not paying $50,000 or more a head just to 'take jobs no American will do.'

"Terrorists are working round the clock to infiltrate the United States," he added. "Congress and this administration must address this gaping hole in our national security and they must do it now."

Patch with Arabic lettering lion's head and paratrooper wingsSome of the more high profile pieces of evidence pointing to terrorist infiltration of the U.S. have been uncovered in Jim Hogg County, Texas, which experiences a high volume of smuggling activity, according to local law enforcement.

"We see patches on jackets from countries where we know al Qaeda to be active," Gonzalez explained.

The patches appear to be military badges with Arabic lettering. One patch in particular, discovered this past December, caught the attention of federal homeland security officials, according to Gonzalez and local officials familiar with the investigation.

Patch with Arabic lettering depicting airplane flying toward towersSheriff Wayne Jernigan of Valverde County, Texas, told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in March about one patch that read "midnight mission" and displayed an airplane flying over a building heading towards a tower. Translators with DHS have said some of the various phrases and slogans on the items could mean "martyr," "way to eternal life," or "way to immortality."

Gonzalez told the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation in July that the terrorists are getting smarter.

"To avoid apprehension, we feel many of these terrorists attempt to blend in with persons of Hispanic origin when entering the country." Gonzalez stated. "We feel that terrorists are already here and continue to enter our country on a daily basis."

Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County, Texas, told Cybercast News Service that he believes some Mexican soldiers are operating in concert with the drug cartels to aid the terrorists.

"There's no doubt in my mind," he said, "although the Mexican government and our government adamantly deny it."

Statistics made available through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show more than 40,000 illegal aliens from countries "Other Than Mexico," designated as OTMs, were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in the period ranging from October 2003 to June 2004, as they attempted to cross the southwestern border. An overview of border security challenges produced through the office of Texas Gov. Rick Perry indicates that almost 120,000 OTMs were apprehended while attempting to cross into the state from January through July 2005.

Local authorities are particularly concerned about illegal aliens arriving from Special Interest Countries (SICs) where a radical version of Islam is known to flourish. Perry's office cites Iraq, Iran, Indonesia and Bangladesh among those countries. A Tancredo spokesperson said the list also includes Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported an internal audit of DHS that combines the number of illegal aliens arriving from SICs with the documented instances of illegal aliens arriving from countries identified as being state sponsors of terrorism (SSTs) yields a grand total of over 90,000 such illegal aliens who have been apprehended during the five year period from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2005.

The border security report delivered by Perry's office focuses attention on the "Triborder region" of Latin America, which spans an area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

"The Triborder Region is a focal point of Islamic extremism," the report states. "Al Qaeda leadership plans to use criminal alien smuggling organizations to bring terrorist operatives across the border into the U.S."

Carlos Espinosa, a press spokesman for Tancredo, said his office is aware of a training camp in Brazil that actually teaches people from outside of Latin America how they can assimilate into the Mexican culture.

"They come up as illegal aliens and disguise themselves as potential migrant workers," Espinosa said. "
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=/SpecialReports/archive/200608/SPE20060821a.html

Friday, August 25, 2006

 

"Shadow Party

"The Cult of Soros
By David Horowitz and Richard Poe
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 25, 2006

 

"Has the Democratic Party become a cult?  And is leftwing billionaire George Soros its guru?  The chorus of hosannas with which leftwing bloggers now greet Mr. Soros’ silliest utterances – and the faithfulness with which Democratic leaders repeat them -- suggests that the answer to both questions is yes.

Take the current Democratic mantra that, if there are terrorists in the world, George Bush has created them.  This is a familiar Soros-ism.  As he has done many times before, Soros decried Bush’s characterization of the current global conflict as a “war on terror” in a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “A Self-Defeating War” (8/15). According to Soros “a misleading figure of speech applied literally has unleashed a real war fought on several fronts -- Iraq, Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia -- a war that has killed thousands of innocent civilians and enraged millions around the world….we can escape it only if we Americans repudiate the war on terror as a false metaphor.”

In normal times and coming from an ordinary mortal, these would be regarded as the comments of a crackpot. After all, the Islamic jihad was on the march – and killing Americans -- for twenty years before George Bush employed the metaphor. Back in 1979, the streets of Teheran were already filled with a million frenzied Muslims chanting “Death to America,” and the 9/11 attacks were themselves hardly in response to anything that the American president had said.

 

But because this judgment is the considered wisdom of a megalomaniac billionaire whose network controls the purse strings of the Democratic Party, this is now the foreign policy of the liberal opposition. When George Soros speaks, the left listens.

 

In a review of Soros’ new book The Age of Fallibility, blogger Jane Hamsher hails him as a latter-day Socrates.  Hamsher is the blogger who created a minor scandal by posting a doctored photograph of Joseph Lieberman in blackface on the Huffington Post website. She writes, “Challenging a ‘false metaphor’ such as the ‘war on terror’ is so threatening to everything the power structure of the Bush administration has been erected upon that to do so will certainly draw down the full force of the right-wing bullies… Mr. Soros has done the heavy lifting and dragged the topic into the national debate…”

 

Blogger Matt Stoller of MyDD concurs. “[This is] the first time a major figure took on the framework of the war on terror, and called it a false metaphor. I think he’s right… The war on terror just doesn't exist any more than a child's imaginary friend exists.”

 

Like Hamsher, Matt Stoller was a leading player in the anti-Lieberman blogswarm.  A long-time Democrat operative, Stoller formerly ran the Corzine Connection blog for Jon Corzine’s gubernatorial campaign in New Jersey. Today Stoller co-directs BlogPAC, a political action committee for leftist bloggers founded by Markos Moulitsas Zuñiga of Daily Kos.

 

Their connection to the anti-Lieberman campaign is, as the Marxists like to say, no accident. The Lieberman ouster – and Soros’s role in it – signify the emergence of a new phenomenon in America’s political life: the Shadow Party.

 

During the 2004 election cycle, Soros put together a network of organizations through which he gained effective control of the Democratic Party’s campaign apparatus – and thus of the Democratic Party itself – in a silent coup whose ramifications are still unfolding.

 

Soros’s coup was ten years in the making.  Since 1994, he had worked with a network of leftwing foundations to fund a $140-million-dollar lobbying drive in favor of “campaign finance reform.”  The campaign succeeded in passing the McCain-Feingold Act, which, by outlawing “soft-money” donations, in effect de-funded the Democratic Party. As a result of the Act, the Democratic Party could no longer collect the multi-million-dollar donations from labor unions which were its lifeblood.

 

Soros stepped in with the Shadow Party to collect the donations instead.

 

Having driven the Democratic Party to the brink of bankruptcy, Soros then offered to save it.  In effect, he privatized the Party, by setting up a network of privately-owned, non-profit groups which would raise the big campaign contributions the Party was now forbidden to raise itself.

 

In a new book, which describes Soros’s achievement, we call this network the Shadow Party, because it acts as a mirror image or shadow of the real Democratic Party.  During the 2004 election cycle, the Shadow Party raised more than $300 million for the Democrat cause – but spent the money itself. This allowed it to shape the politics of the Democratic campaign and control the party’s future. Joe Lieberman now understands what that means."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/

Watch David Horowitz on Neil Cavuto here 

http://www.frontpagemag.com/


Thursday, August 24, 2006

 

"China police arrest funeral strip bosses

Just when it seems you heard it all ............... maybe not quite!!  Found it on FreeRepublic.com, News/Activism.
"China police arrest funeral strip bosses
BEIJING (UPI) -- Chinese police have arrested five people for organizing striptease performances at funerals."......

......."The CCTV report concerned an Aug. 16 funeral where two troupes of strippers performed before a crowd of about 200 villagers, including children. Xinhua said the strippers are used to boost attendance at funerals. Local villagers say the level of honor bestowed on the deceased is dependent on the number of funeral attendees."...........

......."The government has offered a reward of $37 for information about funeral strip shows."


http://www.arcamax.com/newsheadlines/s-107153-811576


Wednesday, August 23, 2006

 

Results from Border Patrol Petitions

Enough people peacefully banded together signing petitions, contacting congress can and ARE making a difference.

 

Sentencing Postponed for Border Agents

 
From the Desk of:
Steve Elliott, President
Grassfire.org

8/23/06


We've just gotten confirmation from Ignacio Ramos's
attorney Stephen Peters, that sentencing for the two
U.S. Border Patrol officers has been postponed until
September 18.

This is great news, because it allows us to continue
ratcheting up the grassroots pressure, and it is working!

Tonight, Grassfire's own Ron De Jong, will appear as a
radio guest on 610 WTVN in Columbus, Ohio to discuss
the case and the overwhelming grassroots response with
host Dirk Thompson.

++ 100,000 petitions arrive in El Paso!

 thanks to so many who have worked so diligently
to rally support for agents Ramos, and Compean, Grassfire
sent more than 100,000 petitions and personal comments to attorney
Stephen Peter’s office as a strong show of grassroots support.

"I was just looking over the comments," said Peters, when
Grassfire called his office on Wednesday. "I will make them
available to my client so that he can see the support he
has from the American public."

Peters urged Grassfire to continue rallying support for
the agents over the next few weeks leading up to the new
sentencing date on September 18, saying all the attention
is very good. "Absolutely, keep them coming. I hope you
send me 100,000 more!" he said.

But that's not all.

Grassfire has already sent more than 100,000 petitions to
the White House, and our successful Faxfire delivered
thousands of faxes sent to key leaders in Congress and
the Department of Homeland Defense which no doubt rattled
some cages, as
key leaders in Congress are now calling for an investigation of the case!

++Action Item #1--Alert Your Friends

, grassroots Americans are making a compelling
impact on this issue, but we must remain vigilant in the
days leading to the sentencing. That is why we are urging
ALL who have signed our petition to forward this message
to your friends, urging them to take action with you by
signing our petition by clicking here:

http://www.grassfire.org/142/petition.asp?PID=11664496

Since sending 100,000 petitions to Mr. Peters office on
Tuesday, more than 13,000 citizens have signed the petition!

This kind of response is due in part to friends like Frank M.,
a retired New Jersey police officer, who called our offices
to tell us that he has made this case his personal mission
to see these men pardoned. Frank is rallying support by
appealing to local police lodges--urging them to post a
link to our petition on their web pages!

Others, like Lillian B., have used the power of the Internet
to rally more than 250 signers!

This is Grassfire at its finest, and we are so proud of the
way our team has responded in support of these two border agents!

Steve Elliott
President
Grassfire.org Alliance

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

 

"U.S. announces end of 'catch and release'

This is a beginning but not the whole answer.  They need to deport all illegal invaders, period and keep borders locked shut.

Contact your senators if you feel strongly about this issue .... they're pushing to get something shoved through so it can be signed before November. 

Stand still, do nothing and you know where Mexican Illegals are going to be shoved.



"U.S. announces end of 'catch and release'
Chertoff says new 'detain' policy means
all non-Mexicans will be returned home

Source WorldNetDaily.com


"The U.S. "catch-and-release" immigration policy officially has ended, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today.

Law enforcement authorities are holding nearly all non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught in the U.S. until they can be deported to their home countries, Chertoff declared.

The new "catch and detain" policy, he noted, does not apply to Mexicans, who are to be sent back immediately after being stopped by Border Patrol agents.

"Although we're not ready to declare victory - we've got a lot more work to do - it is encouraging and it is something that ought to inspire us to continue to push forward," Chertoff told reporters.


Chertoff said a crackdown this summer bolstered by National Guard troops has deterred thousands from illegally crossing the Mexican border.

The Border Patrol provided statistics showing a drop of about 20,000 illegals caught crossing the border compared to last year.

Responding to today's announcement, immigration expert David Mulhausen of the Heritage Foundation said, if true, it is an important advancement in detering illegal immigration.

"However, something still needs to be done about the catching and releasing of Mexican illegal immigrants - the majority of all illegal immigrants," he said in an e-mail to National Review editor Kathryn Jean Lopez. "Hiring thousands of new Border Patrol agents will do little to deter illegal immigration without providing sanctions."

Mulhausen said that "because there is little or no cost to being apprehended by the Border Patrol, the research on illegal immigration suggests that illegal immigrants will make as many trips as necessary to cross the border successfully."

Last October, Chertoff told a Senate hearing the Department of Homeland security had a goal to "completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions."

"It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year," he said at the time.

Chertoff told the Senate in October "a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities."

But the agency, through a "comprehensive approach, was moving to end this 'catch and release' style of border enforcement by reengineering our detention and removal process," he said.

Nevertheless, Chertoff has been pessimistic toward calls to deport illegals who have been living and working in the country for some time.

In a November 2005 interview, defending President Bush's so-called "guest worker" program for illegal aliens, Chertoff said it's just not practical to deport the millions of foreigners in the country illegally.

"The cost of identifying all of those people and sending them back would be stupendous. It would be billions and billions of dollars," Chertoff told Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel program "Hannity & Colmes."

"One of the reasons I think that we've been focusing on the idea of a temporary worker program as part of a larger strategy for border security is because it would be a way to siphon off people who really want to do nothing more than work here, put them into a regulated program - we would know who they are - we would then be able to send them back at the end of a period of three years or six years. They would have made some money, they could take it back home, and then we could focus our other resources on the people that don't want to do it the right way, and we could get those people sent out."

As WorldNetDaily reported today, the White House plans tomorrow to make a show of support for Rep. Mike Pence's proposed immigration compromise, which has been criticized by some conservatives as another form of amnesty.

Washington sources told WND the Bush administration will send Chertoff to the Texas border for a press conference, along with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas; and Pence, R-Ind.

The White House intends to make a push to get some form of immigration reform passed by the Senate and House so President Bush can sign the legislation before the November elections, the sources tell WND. "

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51650


Wednesday, August 23, 2006

 

Georgia Cellphone Law in Effect Today

Georgia drivers who cause wreck while yakking on cellphone will face fine of up to $500
Tue Aug 22 2006 21:19:07 ET

Drivers who cause a wreck while yakking on a cellphone will face a fine of up to $500 under a law that took effect Tuesday, the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION reports.

The law, likely the first of its kind in Georgia, sanctions drivers whose "improper" usage of a mobile phone was a "contributing factor" in a collision causing death, injury or damage.

It has the potential to change the way tens of thousands of drivers go about their business, even if they're simply passing through on the interstates and state highways that cross the county line.

Developing... 
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash6.htm


Wednesday, August 23, 2006

 

Invasion Issue Seems To Be Growing Legs

Looks like this is going to be THE hot button issue for candidates this year and in '08.  If it isn't you might want to check out these three articles about gang activity, some of which is blood curdling.

My bet is that if any congress person's wife, daughter, mother or close female relative had been gang-raped they'd most certainly be for slamming shut the border and deporting every last one of them.

However, it appears we're pawns and totally disposable.

Contact your senator or representative all the way up the food chain to Washington.  Make it clear, unemotional, supported by facts and brief so it will get read.  Don't forget spell check to find typos.  No snail mail ... it is warehoused off site due to mail scare a few years back.

 http://www.homeofheroes.com/speakout/index.html


Candidates challenged on support for borders
Group says immigration laws key to future, and voters should know 
 http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51637

Illegal aliens linked
to gang-rape wave
The crime epidemic no one will talk about?

.........."MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, a highly organized and well-funded Central American gang, is infiltrating at least 33 states across the U.S., according to law-enforcement authorities. The gang is well-known in Los Angeles, Houston, New York and Washington, D.C., for excessive brutality. Any person suspected of cooperating with authorities is hunted down, tortured and killed. Initiation rites include kickings, beatings and gang rapes."................


 http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51424

Illegal immigration sparks
'race war' in cities, prisons
Hispanic, black gangs battle
amid shifting demographics

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51644
 

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

 

"Ari Fleischer To Jimmy Carter: You�_Tre Music To Hezbollah�_Ts Ears

Via Powerlineblog.com found a link to this.

Should have been said by every world head of state over and over for years. 

Our current terrorist situation was directly caused by Carter's cowardice and belief savages can be appeased ............. look where it's gotten us.  They became more and more emboldened and grew like mushrooms on wet mulch. 

Perhaps terrorist organizations will soon erect a statue in Carter's honor.


"Ari Fleischer To Jimmy Carter: You’re Music To Hezbollah’s Ears
August 22, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Extreme Mortman has a copy of the letter Ari Fleischer sent to Jimmy Carter.
Some favorite passages:
I just read the transcript of your interview with the German magazine, Der Spiegel, in which you accuse Israel of launching an “unjustified attack on Lebanon.”
Even after the interviewer reminded you that Israel was the first to get attacked, you charged Israel with lacking “any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon.”
As someone who served in the White House as a spokesman for a President, I am reluctant to criticize another President, but in this instance my conscience compels me to do so.
Mr. President, your words are music to Hezbollah’s ears and your message is a blow to long-term peace.
Just as you underestimated the threat of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, you underestimate the threat of radical Islam today.  Your condemnation of Israel, the victim, only encourages Hezbollah, the attacker, to bide its time and attack again.

I’m sorry to see you articulate about Hezbollah and its aggression the same weak world-view that encouraged Soviet aggression.  As Ronald Reagan showed us, peace through strength is the only formulation understood by those bent on destruction.
I understand your longing for peace and your fond hope that Hezbollah can be reasoned with.  However, when you call Israel’s defense “an attack”, when you call what is justified “unjustified”, and when you call morality immoral, I conclude that the pro-defense, strong foreign policy lessons of the 70s and 80s remain unacceptable to you.  Also, when you criticize Israel for targeting so-called “civilian” areas in Beirut and other areas where Hezbollah hides its operations, the result would be – if Israel listened to you – the creation of safe havens from which more violence and rocket attacks would be planned and launched.
Sadly, Hezbollah today is planning its next war.  For the sake of peace, Israel deserves your praise, not your condemnation."
    http://www.extrememortman.com/bush-administration/ari-fleischer-to-jimmy-carter-youre-music-to-hezbollahs-ears/

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

 

"Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart"

Capitalism at its best providing jobs so people can work themselves out of poverty!! 

I'm not a monetary expert but believe I read that China has not put its currency on the world market to be traded like ours is so it's remained fairly static in value over the past few years.


1.00 USD United States Dollars = 7.98665 CNY China Yuan Renminbi
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi

"Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart"
By Michael Strong
Between 1990 and 2002 more than 174 million people escaped poverty in China, about 1.2 million per month.[1] With an estimated $23 billion in Chinese exports in 2005 (out of a total of $713 billion in manufacturing exports),[2] Wal-Mart might well be single-handedly responsible for bringing about 38,000 people out of poverty in China each month, about 460,000 per year.


There are estimates that 70 percent of Wal-Mart's products are made in China.[3] One writer vividly suggests that "One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market." [4] Even without considering the $263 billion in consumer savings that Wal-Mart provides for low-income Americans, or the millions lifted out of poverty by Wal-Mart in other developing nations, it is unlikely that there is any single organization on the planet that alleviates poverty so effectively for so many people.[5] Moreover, insofar as China's rapid manufacturing growth has been associated with a decline in its status as a global arms dealer, Wal-Mart has also done more than its share in contributing to global peace.[6]


How can this be, given the vast and growing literature documenting Wal-Mart's faults? We have seen workers in the factories of Wal-Mart's suppliers complain on tape about being forced to work long hours under terrible conditions. Certainly no one should be forced at any workplace. And yet even articles documenting Wal-Mart's faults often mention other facts that ought to be considered before coming to too quick a judgment concerning the overall impact of the corporation. In a Washington Post story titled "Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart's Low Prices," documenting abuses of workers at Wal-Mart suppliers in China, the authors point out that:


"China is the most populous country, with 1.3 billion people, most still poor enough to willingly move hundreds of miles from home for jobs that would be shunned by anyone with better prospects."


If we care about alleviating global poverty we need to take this fact seriously. Without Wal-Mart, about half a million of these people each year would be stuck in rural poverty that is, for most of them, far worse than sweatshop labor.


D. Gale Johnson, an economist who studied regional inequality within China, described the enormous disparity between urban and rural workers as "the great injustice."[7] Urban workers earn about 2.5 times as much as rural workers.[8] Even after counting the higher cost of living in urban areas, urban workers make about twice as much.[9] Not surprisingly, massive numbers of people are moving to the city to work in factories. In 1990, 71 percent of China's labor force was in agriculture, whereas by 2000 that percentage had dropped to 63 percent: this great migration represents roughly 100 million people leaving rural areas to earn, on average, twice as much as they had on the farm.[10]


Other than economic growth, there is no way to double the salaries of a 100 million people (and growing). After the 2004 Asian Tsunami, more than one-third of Americans gave more than $400 million in charitable aid, an extraordinary outburst of giving by any standard. And yet there are more than 630 million rural Chinese remaining, many of whom are living on less than a dollar per day. While each would welcome a charitable dollar if we could get it to them, that charitable dollar, representing one good day's worth of income, would not do them nearly as much good as would a job in the city paying twice as much day in, day out. Charity cannot take place on an adequate scale to solve global poverty.


Despite Jeff Sachs' enthusiasm for foreign aid, Bill Easterly makes a compelling case that government-to-government aid damages economies as often as it helps them.[11] Does anyone think the World Bank raises more people out of poverty than does Wal-Mart?


What about social entrepreneurship? Ashoka, the highly regarded social entrepreneurship organization certified as among the "Best in America" charities, highlights among its hundreds of projects a worker's cooperative in Brazil that is growing rapidly:


Each member contracts individually with Coopa-Roca, but the collective meets weekly. Membership in the cooperative grew from eight members in 1982 to 16 in 2000, and has surged to 70 steady members today.[12]


Is it heroic to raise one person up out of poverty each month, but merely a statistic to raise a million up?[13]


Grameen Bank, the granddaddy of the social entrepreneurship movement, has now served 5 million borrowers. Over a period of twenty-five years, their five million served is thus of the same order of magnitude as the five million or so brought out of poverty by Wal-Mart in the last fifteen years. Micro-finance has become a hit with global development experts because it is the only poverty alleviation initiative, other than economic growth, that appears to be scalable.


That said; there is a thatched-ceiling to poverty alleviation through micro-finance.[14] It may well be the case that the vast majority of Grameen Bank micro-entrepreneurs experience considerably greater pride and happiness in their work than do the factory workers hired by Wal-Mart suppliers. But most of these micro-entrepreneurs, who borrow less than $100 each and then repay the loan, do not experience as large an increase in standard of living as do those rural Chinese who move to urban areas and thereby earn an extra $1 or so per day, $365 or so dollars per year. Poor, rural micro-entrepreneurs selling eggs to other poor rural peasants simply do not have access to the vast pipeline of wealth from the developed world.


Moreover, most of the sweatshops workers in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, as well as the most of the sweatshop workers in Taiwan and South Korea in the 1970s and 80s, are now middle class retirees in developed nations. Likewise most of the "underpaid" Chinese workers of today will retire in a state of comfort and luxury unimaginable to them in their rural youth, as average Chinese wages will gradually rise just as they have risen in every other nation that has experienced long-term economic growth. At present rates of economic growth, China will reach a U.S. standard of living in 2031.


Paul Krugman, one of the most aggressively left-liberal economists writing today, understands how economic growth helps the poor:


"These improvements ... [are] the indirect and unintended result of the actions of soulless multinationals and rapacious local entrepreneurs, whose only concern was to take advantage of the profit opportunities offered by cheap labor. It is not an edifying spectacle; but no matter how base the motives of those involved, the result has been to move hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to something still awful but nonetheless significantly better."[15]


The Nobel laureate economist Robert Lucas once said "Once you start thinking about economic growth, it is hard to think about anything else." Non-economists, especially those associated with the environmental movement, regard this as evidence that economics is a form of brain damage, a cancer on our earth. But rural Chinese peasants surviving on less than a dollar per day do not regard economic growth, or Wal-Mart factory jobs, as a cancer. When a Mongolian student at a U.S. workshop on globalization heard U.S. college students denounce sweatshops, he shouted: "Please give us your sweatshops!


An unreflective passion for social justice may be one of the biggest obstacles to creating peace and prosperity in the 21st century. While there are most certainly factory owners in China whom we would rightly regard as criminal in their treatment of their workers, it is very important not to confuse these incidents with the phenomenon of globalization. It is a good thing that Wal-Mart is encouraging more humane standards in its supplier's factories. And yet it is also important to remember that Wal-Mart's "vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market" is a vast pipeline of prosperity for the hundreds of millions of rural Chinese whose lives are more difficult than we can imagine.


Act locally, think globally: Shop Wal-Mart.


Michael Strong is CEO and co-founder (with John Mackey) of FLOW.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] See The Asian Development Bank, "Key Indicators 2004: Poverty in Asia," http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Key_Indicators/2004/default.asp, Table 15.

[2] John McClenahan, "China Poised to Pass U.S. in Manufactured Goods Exports," Industry Week, May 1, 2006 for total numbers, Wal-Mart figure extrapolated from China Daily, "Wal-Mart's China Inventory to Hit U.S. $18 Billion This Year," November 29, 2004, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-11/29/content_395728.htm.

[3] China Daily, op. cit.

[4] Charles Fishman, "The Wal-Mart You Don't Know," Fast Company, December 2003.

[5] See Global Impact, "The Economic Impact of Wal-Mart," http://www.globalinsight.com/MultiClientStudy/MultiClientStudyDetail2438.htm.

[6] In 1990 China was the third-largest arms dealer on earth, now they are a relatively minor player in the global arms trade. Had Russia likewise experienced such growth, rogue states and warlords would not be so well-armed, http://www.nti.org/db/china/conpos.htm.

[7] Lin, Wang, and Zhao, "Regional Inequality and Labor Transfers in China," Paper prepared for the D. Gale Johnson Memorial Conference, Chicago, Oct. 25, 2003, revised March 2004, pg. 2.

[8] Lin, Wang, and Zhao, pg. 5.

[9] Martin Ravallion and Shaohua Chen calculate a 41 percent higher cost of living in urban areas, Ravallion, Martin and Chen, Shaohua, "China's (Uneven) Progress Against Poverty" (September 2004). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3408. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=625285, pg. 8.

[10] Lin, Wang, and Zhao, pg. 6.

[11] William Easterly, White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, Penguin, 2006.

[12] "Shanty Town Seamstresses Fuel the Fashion Industry" By Shannon Walbran, http://www.changemakers.net/journal/02june/walbran.cfm.

[13] Consistent with this perspective, in May 2005 an Ashoka social entrepreneurship contest on how to reduce human trafficking openly refused to consider proposals that focused on increasing economic growth.

[14] Indeed in Despite Good Intentions, Thomas Dichter has credibly argued that micro-finance has done more harm than good.

[15] Paul Krugman, "In Praise of Cheap Labor," Slate, March 21, 1997, http://www.slate.com/id/1918.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=082206D


Tuesday, August 22, 2006

 

"Winning Notification"

Nothing like beginning the day with ....       ... have a good laugh!!   

You know I was so SPECIAL that my email address didn't appear on the incoming message nor message source I copied and sent on to [email protected]  because my bets are this falls into that category.


----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 10:41 PM
Subject: spam: CLAIM YOUR FUNDS!!!


The National Lottery
P O Box 1010
Liverpool, L70 1NL
UNITED KINGDOM
(Customer Services)
Date:22nd August, 2006

WINNING NOTIFICATION
Ref: UK/9420X2/68
Batch: 074/05/ZY369

Dear Winner,
We happily announce to you the draw (#1111) of the UK NATIONAL
LOTTERY, online Sweepstakes International program held Wednesday 16th
August, 2006.
Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 56475600545 188 with
Serial number 5368/02 drew the lucky numbers:(04).( 08).( 16) . (20 ).
(25 ).( 31 )
Winning Numbers Breakdown Bonus Ball [43] which subsequently won you
the lottery

in the 2nd category i.e match 5 plus bonus.
You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of £250,000 (Two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterlings) in cash credited to file
KTU/9023118308/03.
This is from a total cash prize of £1,000,000 shared amongst the first
four (4) lucky winners in this category i.e Match 5 plus bonus.
All participants for the online version were selected randomly from
World Wide Web sites through computer draw system and extracted from
over
100,000 unions, associations and corporate bodies that are listed
online. This promotion takes place weekly.
Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our European
booklet representative office in Europe as indicated in your play
coupon.

In view of this, your £250,000 (Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
sterlings) would be released to you by any of our payment offices in
Europe.
Our European agent will immediately commence theprocess to facilitate
the release of your funds
as soon as you contact him.
For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information
confidential
your claim is processed and your money remitted to you in
whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize.
This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and
unwarranted abuse of this program.
Please be warned. To file for your claim, please fill the form given
below and contact our claims agent whose details are given below ;

FILL THE FORM BELOW
Name___________________________________
Age_____________________________________
Sex_____________________________________
Age______________________________________
Marital Status_____________________________
Tel/Fax___________________________________
Address___________________________________
Annual Income_____________________________

NB: FILL AND RETURN THE FORM TO THE CONTACTS BELOW;

Overseas Claims Unit
United Kingdom Lottery Fiduciary

Mr.Steve Blake,
Email:[email protected]

Once your verification form is completely filled and returned our
European agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the
release of your funds as soon as you contact him
. You may wish to
establish
contact via e-mail with the particulars presented above citing the
batch and reference numbers to this letter.

Our winners are assured of the utmost standards of confidentiality, and
press anonymity until the end of proceedings and beyond where they so
desire. Be further advised to maintain the strictest level of
confidentiality until the end of proceedings to circumvent problems
associated
with fraudulent claims. This is part of our precautionary measure to
avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program.
Goodluck from me and members of staff of the UK NATIONAL LOTTERY.
Yours faithfully,
Brian Hunt
Online coordinator for UK NATIONAL LOTTERY,
Sweepstakes International Program.
Open 7days 8am-8pm
CONFIDENTIAL NOTICE: This email message, including any attachments, is
intended only for the use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain
information that is privileged, confidential and prohibited from
unauthorized disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the
intended
recipient of this message, any dissemination, distribution or copying
of
this message is strictly prohibited. If you received this message in
error, please notify the sender by reply email and destroy all copies
of
the original message.
Copyright © 1994-2006 The UK National Lottery Inc.
All rights reserved. Terms of Service - Guidelines


Monday, August 21, 2006

 

Immigration Petitions

Only Hours Remain to Gather 100,000 Petitions of Support for Two U.S. Border Agents Facing 20 Year Prison Terms For Pursuing Illegal Alien!

http://grassfire.org/

 


21 Immigration Field Hearings In August; Grassroots Action Needed!

http://grassfire.org/

 


Monday, August 21, 2006

 

Cartoon Link

Found cartoon link on RightNation.us      Green laugh  Green laugh  Green laugh
About correct IMHO.  About three weeks ago I found a post on another site about a news-feed preceeding video which said UN trucks were in the area of Hebollah fighters and THERE WERE NO CIVILIANS IN SIGHT, NO HOMES.  Question was whether the UN "humanitarian teams" were re-supplying Hezbollah. 
Given the amount of Sharia law having been written into UN rules makes me wonder.  Israel probably knows for sure. 

UN Hezbollah Disarmament Team
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/06.08.20.DisproportionII-X.gif

Sunday, August 20, 2006

 

"The Real Teachings of the Koran

"The Real Teachings of the Koran

By Cal Thomas

During the Cold War, American intelligence loved getting its hands on defectors from communism. The reasoning was that these people had the best information about the plans of the other side, information that would help America defeat them.

In the present war against what President Bush has properly labeled "Islamic fascism," defectors are just as valuable.

The Israel Project, an international nonprofit organization devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel, recently made a former leading imam and radical Islam expert available for media interviews and I had a chance to speak with him. He goes by the name of Sam Soloman because of death threats from those not happy with the information he has about their plans to dominate the world.

Soloman was brought up in the Islamic tradition and became a "recruiter," which he says is something like an assistant teacher. One of his responsibilities was "brainwashing people in the Koran." He tells me "The suicide bombers go through stages, and the most important stage is not when they blow themselves up. The most important stage is conforming them to the (Muslim) ideology. Once they are conformed to the ideology, the rest is easy. That is the role I had."

Soloman is in double trouble. Not only did he abandon Islam and the terrorists' objectives, he has also become a Christian, which has marked him for death. Born in the Middle East, he visited Washington from his adopted country, which he declines to name to protect his family.

Soloman speaks with knowledge, credibility and conviction. He has memorized large sections of the Koran and tells me, "There's not a single verse in the Koran talking about peace with a non-Muslim, with the Jews and the Christians. Islam means submission. Islam means surrender. It means you surrender and accept Islamic hegemony over yourselves..."

I ask him about the best strategy for fighting it: "It cannot be combated simply by force. It needs to be combated ideologically, spiritually (as well as) through arms."

Soloman says the outlets for Islamic ideology are religious - seminaries, the madrassas (Koranic schools) and especially the mosques. "From the beginning, Mohammed used the mosque to propagate this ideology. It was in the mosque that jihad was declared (and) that troops were sent to conquer the rest of the world. The mosque was the seat of government and Americans are right to be concerned about (their growth)."

He asks Americans to inform themselves about the real teachings of Islam and not to fall for what various Islamic groups say it teaches. Soloman says, "The simplest Islamic book you open" teaches that all unbelievers (in Islam) are profane people. "Because of the (Koranic) text and what it says, it incites violence." He begins quoting verses from memory, too quickly to write them all down. One is, "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush." (Surah 9:5)

"This kind of tactic of taking verses out of context can be used against any religious faith," says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, an Islamic civil rights and advocacy group. "It can and has been used against the Bible and has been used against the Quran."

"These verses deal with the real experience of the Muslim community at the time when they were under attack. It's not a general injunction to go out and harm people. The only people who take it that way are those who want to promote hostility toward Islam and Muslims. They would object if the same thing were done to their faith."

Yes, but virtually all Christians and Jews denounce the infinitesimal few who claim to be Jewish or Christian and use their "holy books" to justify violence against others as a direct command from God.

Asked whether the Koran commands the killing of or violence against all nonbelievers, Ali Khan, national director of the Chicago-based American Muslim Council, replied: "No. (That's) far from the truth. There's nothing in the Koran, no verse that I'm aware of, that advocates the killing of nonbelievers."

The terrorists and those who preach from mosques throughout the Middle East must be reading a different version, then, because virtually all of their sermons that I've read claim their God wants them to kill all "infidels."

Soloman says Americans must demand from the leading Islamic hierarchy, such as the Muslim World League and the Union of Imams, a fatwa that makes it clear "that this is not what the text means and that these texts are no longer effective. They have passed their date. But if they remain effective and eternally valid, then in America we have a serious problem."

How serious? He says "They are infiltrating and undermining every part of this society. We are promoting Islamic mortgages, Islamic insurance companies. There are 29 banks in the United States promoting Islamic banking. Since 1999, Dow Jones has launched Dow Jones Islamic Index and has subjected itself to be governed by an international Sharia board." (Sharia is the religious law of Islam outlined in the Koran.)

Soloman adds, "The Islamic organizations have their missionaries and there are active or sleeping cells in this country." He mentions one, Tablighi Jamaat, "a Pakistani organization that is hand-in-glove with the Wahaabis, strong Muslim sects known for their strict observance of the Koran, and a strong facilitator of al-Qaida and other factions of terrorism. They alone have 1,000 missionaries in New York, 50,000 across the United States. This is only one organization. In 1994, I took a map and started putting pins in it. I found there is not a single state without a mosque. Since then (the number) has increased."

Americans must see past their natural reluctance to paint all members of a group with a broad brush and realize our failure to act now against this clear and present danger in the ways Sam Soloman recommends will lead to a disaster for us that is far worse than our Cold War enemies had envisaged. "

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/the_convert.html


Sunday, August 20, 2006

 

Video link "Pallywood"

Directly from Powerlineblog.com    Pallywood


"Old Hands At Fakery

 

Some time ago, Richard Landes, a Professor of History at Boston University, and Pedro Zúquete made a film about the Palestinians' use of staged and faked video "bites," and the credulous international news agencies that fall for them. Or, perhaps, collaborate in them. It's called "Pallywood," and is exceptionally well done. The video, which is about 18 minutes long, sheds considerable light on the staging and faking of photos that were so common in the recent conflict in Lebanon.

You can watch the video on Power Line Video, and learn more about the video, and related projects, on Landes's and Zuquete's site, The Second Draft.  "

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015053.php


Saturday, August 19, 2006

 

"Mutiny on Flight 613

"Mutiny on Flight 613
Passengers refuse to allow holiday jet to take off until two Asian men are thrown off plane

By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE and ANDREW CHAPMAN 23:42pm 19th August 2006
Source Daily Mail, UK
"British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'.

The passenger revolt came as Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary was accused of using the terror crisis to make money. Government sources say he boasted to an official at the Transport Department: "Every time I appear on TV, I get a spike in sales."

The Tories said the Government's failure to reassure travellers had led the Malaga passengers to 'behave irrationally' and 'hand a victory to terrorists'.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.

The trouble in Malaga flared last Wednesday as two British citizens in their 20s waited in the departure lounge to board the pre-dawn flight and were heard talking what passengers took to be Arabic. Worries spread after a female passenger said she had heard something that alarmed her.

Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others.

The Monarch pilot - a highly experienced captain - accompanied by armed Civil Guard police and airport security staff, approached the two men and took their passports.

Half an hour later, police returned and escorted the two Asian passengers off the jet.

'There was no fuss or panic'

Soon afterwards, the aircraft was cleared while police did a thorough security sweep. Nothing was found and the plane took off - three hours late and without the two men on board.

Monarch arranged for them to spend the rest of the night in an airport hotel and flew them back to Manchester later on Wednesday.

College lecturer Jo Schofield, her husband Heath and daughters Emily, 15, and Isabel, 12, were caught up in the passenger mutiny.

Mrs Schofield, 38, said: "The plane was not yet full and it became apparent that people were refusing to board. In the gate waiting area, people had been talking about these two, who looked really suspicious with their heavy clothing, scruffy, rough, appearance and long hair.

"Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like, 'Those two look like they're bombers.'

"Then a family stood up and walked off the aircraft. They were joined by others, about eight in all. We learned later that six or seven people had refused to get on the plane.

"There was no fuss or panic. People just calmly and quietly got off the plane. There were no racist taunts or any remarks directed at the men.

"It was an eerie scene, very quiet. The children were starting to ask what was going on. We tried to play it down." ................

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=401419&in_page_id=1770


Friday, August 18, 2006

 

"Useful Idiots: Islam�_Ts Best Soldiers

"Useful Idiots: Islam’s Best Soldiers
By Amil Imani
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 18, 2006


Islam enjoys a large and influential ally among the non-Muslims: A new generation of “Useful Idiots,” that Lenin identified as those who lived in liberal democracies and furthered the work of communism. This new generation of Useful Idiots also lives in liberal democracies but serves the cause of Islamofascism—another virulent form of totalitarian ideology.
 
Useful Idiots are naïve, foolish, ignorant of facts, unrealistically idealistic, dreamers, willfully in denial or deceptive. They hail from the ranks of the chronically unhappy, the anarchists, the aspiring revolutionaries, the neurotics who are at war with life, the disaffected alienated from government, corporations, and just about any and all institutions of society. The Useful Idiot can be a billionaire, a movie star, an academe of renown, a politician, or from any other segment of the population.
 
Arguably, the most dangerous Useful Idiot is the “Politically Correct.” He is the master practitioner of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception. 
 
The Useful Idiot derives satisfaction from being anti-establishment. He finds perverse gratification in aiding the forces that aim to dismantle an existing order, whatever it may be: an order he neither approves of nor he feels he belongs to.
 
The Useful Idiot is conflicted and dishonest. He fails to look inside himself and discover the causes of his own problems and unhappiness while he readily enlists himself in causes that validate his distorted perception.

 

Understandably, it is easier to blame others and the outside world than to examine oneself with an eye to self-discovery and self-improvement. Furthermore, criticizing and complaining—liberal practices of the Useful Idiot—require little talent and energy. The Useful Idiot is a great armchair philosopher and “Monday Morning Quarterback.”
 
The Useful Idiot is not the same as a person who honestly has a different point of view. A society without honest and open differences of views is a dead society. Critical, different and fresh ideas are the life blood of a living society—the very anathema of autocracies where the official position is sacrosanct.
 
Even the “normal” spends a great deal more energy aiming to fix things out there than working to overcome his own flaws and shortcomings, or contribute positively to the larger society. People don’t like to take stock of what they are doing or not doing that is responsible for the conditions they disapprove.
 
The Useful Idiot, among other things, is a master practitioner of scapegoating. He assigns blame to others while absolving himself of responsibility, has a long handy list of candidates for blaming anything and everything, and by living a distorted life, he contributes to the ills of society.
 
The Useful Idiot may even engage in willful misinformation and deception when it suits him. Terms such as “Political Islam,” or “Radical Islam,” for instance, are contributions of the Useful Idiot. These terms do not even exist in the native parlance of Islam, simply because they are redundant. Islam, by its very nature and according to its charter—the Quran—is a radical political movement. It is the Useful Idiot who sanitizes Islam and misguides the populace by saying that the “real Islam” constitutes the main body of the religion; and, that this main body is non-political and moderate.
 
Regrettably, a large segment of the population goes along with these nonsensical euphemisms depicting Islam because it prefers to believe them. It is less threatening to believe that only a hijacked small segment of Islam is radical or politically driven and that the main body of Islam is indeed moderate and non-political.
 
But Islam is political to the core. In Islam the mosque and state are one and the same—the mosque is the state. This arrangement goes back to the days of Muhammad himself. Islam is also radical to the extreme. Even the “moderate” Islam is radical in its beliefs as well as its deeds. Muslims believe that all non-Muslims, bar none, are hellfire bound and well-deserve being maltreated to the utmost.
 
No radical barbaric act of depravity is out of bounds for Muslims in dealing with others. They destroy precious statues of Buddha, level sacred monuments of other religions, and bulldoze the cemeteries of non-Muslims—a few examples of their utter extreme contempt toward others.
 
Muslims are radical even in their intrafaith dealings. Various sects and sub-sects pronounce other sects and sub-sects as heretics worthy of death; women are treated as chattel, deprived of many rights; hands are chopped for stealing even a loaf of bread; sexual violation is punished by stoning, and much much more. These are standard day-to-day ways of the mainstream “moderate” Muslims living under the stone-age laws of Shariah.
 
The “moderate” Islam has been outright genocidal from inception. Their own historians record that Ali, the first imam of the Shiite and the son-in-law of Muhammad, with the help of another man beheaded 700 Jewish men in the presence of the prophet himself. The prophet of Allah and his disciples took the murdered men’s women and children in slavery. Muslims have been, and continue to be, the most vicious and shameless practitioner of slavery. Slave trade, even today, is a thriving business in Islamic lands where wealthy, perverted sheikhs purchase children of the poor from traffickers for their sadistic gratification.
 
It is a well-established fact that a Jew’s word is his bond. The exact opposite is the case with Muslims. Muslims are taught deception and lying in the Quran itself—something that Muhammad practiced during his life whenever he found it expedient. Successive Islamic rulers and leaders have done the same. Khomeini, the founder of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, for instance, rallied the people under the banner of democracy. All along his support for democracy was not a commitment of an honest man, but a ruse of a true Muslim. As soon as he gathered the reign of power, Khomeini went after the Useful Idiots of his time with vengeance. These best children of Iran, having been thoroughly deceived and used by the crafty phony populist-religionist, had to flee the country to avoid the fate of tens of thousands who were imprisoned or executed by the double-crossing imam.
 
Almost three decades after the tragic Islamic Revolution of 1979, the suffocating rule of Islam casts its death-bearing pal over Iranians. A proud people with enviable heritage is being systematically purged of its sense of identity and forced to think and behave like the barbaric and intolerant Muslims. Iranians who had always treated women with equality, for instance, have seen them reduced by the stone-age clergy to sub-human status of Islamic teaching. Any attempt by the women of Iran to counter the misogynist rule of Muhammad’s mullahs is mercilessly suppressed. Women are beaten, imprisoned, raped and killed just as men are slaughtered without due process or mercy.
 
The lesson is clear. Beware of the Useful Idiots who live in liberal democracies. Knowingly or unknowingly, they serve as the greatest volunteer and effective soldiers of Islam. They pave the way for the advancement of Islam and they will assuredly be among the very first victims of Islam as soon as it assumes power. "

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23947


Thursday, August 17, 2006

 

Mad Cow Disease in the Senate

The House Panel: Senate Bill Would 'Cede Control' of Border
By Kevin Mooney
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 17, 2006

(CNSNews.com) - Key provisions of the border security bill passed by the U.S. Senate are "meaningless" according to the House Judiciary Committee, which is holding a field hearing on the bill in El Paso, Texas, Thursday. Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) warns that the Senate is trying to "cede control" of the country's southern border security to the Mexican government.

The Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) has already passed the House of Representatives but has not been reconciled with the competing Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

The House bill directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to "construct double-layered and reinforced fencing and additional barriers, roads, lighting, camera and sensors along designated stretches of the southern border which are the major points of current illegal border crossing."

The proposal includes 72 miles of fence in California, 342 miles in Arizona, 70 miles in New Mexico, including the border area just west of El Paso, Texas, and 370 miles of fencing in Texas.

Conversely, the Senate bill authorizes only 370 total miles of fencing and makes construction of any fences conditional upon consultation with the Mexican government.

A statement issued by Sensenbrenner's office indicates that the committee is particularly displeased with that part of the Senate's proposal.

"Mexico is unlikely to provide its approval for new fences because its political leaders have made it a top priority to stop any more fence construction," the committee statement said. "Consequently, the Senate's fence provisions become meaningless, and an important precedent [would be] established to cede control of security on the Southwest border to Mexico."

The House committee is also concerned that the Senate bill would inhibit local sheriffs and police departments that want to help enforce immigration laws. Local law enforcement officials operating along the Mexican border strongly object to the proposed restrictions and have told other members of congress that such provisions would undermine security.

Rep. Edward Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, recalled that it was local law enforcement officials who stopped four of the 19 hijackers for speeding prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"All four terrorists could have been arrested if the officers ... realized that they were here illegally," Royce told Cybercast News Service in an email.

Royce also warned that the Senate bill could discourage local police from detaining aliens who have remained in the country illegally after their visas have expired.

"Afraid of being blamed for making a wrongful arrest and getting sued, many law enforcement agencies may stop helping the federal government enforce immigration laws altogether," Royce added. "Instead of tying the hands of local law enforcement, we should be encouraging them to cooperate with immigration officials to help enforce our immigration laws."

Sheriff Leo Samaniego of El Paso County, Texas, will testify at Thursday's hearing. He told Cybercast News Service that the border can be protected if enough personnel and resources are deployed.

"Can we secure the border?" Samaniego asked, rhetorically. "You betcha!"

"Operation Linebacker" is a prime example, Samaniego said, of how local law enforcement agencies can work together to support the federal government border enforcement efforts. The program allows sheriffs to hire additional personnel to target illegal aliens who get past the U.S. Border Patrol.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry secured grant funding for Operation Linebacker which resulted in more resources for sheriffs operating along the border. Although it has only been active for a few months, the operation has resulted in a dramatic reduction in criminal activity in participating counties.

Samaniego estimates that the $100 million-a-year for border county law enforcement agencies in the House bill would be sufficient to fund initiatives like Operation Linebacker all along the southern U.S. border. The Senate bill is problematic, he says, because it would only provide about $50 million.

Moreover, the Senate's funding would be available to any community within 100 miles of the Mexican or Canadian borders. That feature would "dilute" the impact of bill, Samaniego said, because the funding would be allocated to so many agencies."

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=/SpecialReports/archive/200608/SPE20060817a.html

Thursday, August 17, 2006

 

"Why We MUST Profile

Seems it's time to get very serious about profiling, and we can begin with a history lesson of who's committed acts of terrorism over the past 30 years, radical Islamics. 

No amount of PC sanitizing can erase FACTS.

Congress needs to quickly grow some spine on a number of issues, profiling as the most pressing, sealing borders and enforcing current immigration without amnesty as a close second.

Contact your Senator and Representative letting them know your feelings about profiling.  I am.


"Why We MUST Profile
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 17, 2006


To profile or not to profile? Some recent suspicious incidents involving mass purchase of cell phones by Middle Eastern men have given this debate a new urgency.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, terrorism charges were dropped against two Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan, who had been arrested in Ohio. Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan had been stopped for a traffic violation a week before; in their car, sheriff’s deputies found $11,000 in cash, airline passenger lists, material about airport security procedures, and twelve cell phones. It turned out that they had bought 600 cell phones recently.

 

Cell phones can be used as detonators. They’re also a ready means of non-traceable communication, as well as an easy source of ready cash, as they can be resold to people who don’t want their calls traceable. There have been several other strange incidents involving mass purchase of such phones recently: three Palestinians were recently arrested in Texas with 1,000 cell phones in their van, and there was another incident involving “Middle Eastern men” buying cell phones in large quantities in Tucson, Arizona.

 

These incidents, especially all coming around the same time, are extremely suspicious, but even before prosecutors dropped the terror charges against Houssaiky and Abulhassan, charges of racial profiling began surfacing in the mainstream media. A public defender handling Abulhassan’s case, Ray Smith, said of his client at a hearing: “If his name was Joe Smith, we wouldn’t be here. His origin and appearance and name condition us to (think), ‘Oh my gosh, he’s a terrorist.’” The dropping of the charges will only reinforce this impression, despite the fact that many questions remain about the case and Washington County, Ohio Prosecutor James Schneider said that he still might press terrorism-related charges against the pair. According to AP, “Relatives of the men said they were just trying to make money by reselling the phones and were targeted because of their Arab backgrounds.”

 

It is unclear, however, what those who are charging that racial profiling was a factor in the arrest of Houssaiky and Abulhassan would have preferred to have happened. The facts of the case remain that they had lists of airline passengers, information on airport security, a large amount of cash, and instruments capable of being used as detonators. I hope that in such circumstances – given the fact that jihad terrorists have abundantly established their taste for targeting airplanes -- investigators would have looked into the possibility of terrorism even if Houssaiky and Abulhassan had been two Norwegian grandmothers.

 

But the fact that they are two young Muslim men makes this not an option, but a necessity. For however unpleasant or politically inconvenient a fact it may be, young Muslim males are responsible for the overwhelming majority of terrorist violence around the world today. Since 9/11 Islamic jihadists have perpetrated well over five thousand terror attacks; no other group even comes close. Sane and courageous law enforcement officials will therefore subject young Muslim males to greater scrutiny, within the bounds of the law – and political correctness can take the hindmost.

 

Profiling, of course, is an imperfect tool, however useful it may be. Islam is not a race, and neither is the jihad. Adherents of the jihad ideology can be found among all races: as John Walker Lindh, Jose Padilla, Richard Reid, Ismail Royer, and Hasan Akbar can attest. All those men have in common is that they are converts to Islam – a phenomenon that doesn’t necessarily have any outward signs. In fact, a recently discovered Al-Qaeda manual directs jihadists to adopt a Western secular appearance, and to eschew any outward manifestation of Islamic faith, precisely in order to divert suspicion: “Have a general appearance that does not indicate Islamic orientation (beard, toothpick, book, [long] shirt, small Koran)....Be careful not to mention the brothers’ common expressions or show their behaviors (special praying appearance, ‘may Allah reward you’, ‘peace be on you’ while arriving and departing, etc.)...Avoid visiting famous Islamic places (mosques, libraries, Islamic fairs, etc.).” Likewise, the recent terror arrests in Britain, which included a pregnant woman, demonstrate that not all jihad terrorists are men, either.

 

Nonetheless, the fact remains that young Middle Eastern males have committed a disproportionate amount of violent terror attacks in recent years. Although Islamic jihad supremacism is an ideology, not a race, more Middle Eastern males hold to it than do members of other groups. Accordingly, it is simply a waste of resources to subject all airline passengers, from grandmothers to toddlers, to equal scrutiny, while refusing to spend more time investigating passengers who come from the group from which most terrorists spring nowadays.

 

This is not a question of civil liberties. No one is arguing for the rounding-up of people who are just going about their business. If, however, the police see anything suspicious, as they did in the car of Houssaiky and Abulhassan, they have a right and a duty to check it out, and should be able to do so freely, without worrying about hurting feelings or incurring internal affairs investigations for politically incorrect practices. And it is still true that in a free society, people who are not breaking the law will have nothing to worry about.

After the uncovering of the recent jihadist airplane plot in Britain, British officials have begun moving toward this. However, politically this is an explosive issue: a British source said that the British Department for Transport “is ultra-sensitive about this and won’t say anything publicly because of political concerns about being accused of racial stereotyping.” And predictably, once a report was printed about this in the Times of London, Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Ali Desai declared: “What you are suggesting is that we should have a new offence in this country called ‘traveling whilst Asian.’ What we don’t want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists.” And of course, we don’t want to do that. But those communities themselves have to take responsibility for the fact that jihadists have lived and recruited and plotted in their midst, generally with no fear that their coreligionists would turn them in. While Muslim tipsters helped expose the latest airplane hijacking plot, and that is highly commendable, all too often the wrath of the Muslim communities in America and Britain has been focused on anti-terror efforts and the foreign policy of their governments – when what is needed instead is an understanding of and tolerance for the need for profiling. But Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain doesn’t think profiling is worth doing anyway: “If the profiling is done on the basis of race and religion, it will be wrong, it is not going to work.”

 

Why not? All the September 11 hijackers were Muslims. So were the July 7 London bombers. And the Madrid train bombers of March 2004. And on and on. All the plotters in the recent international airplane hijacking attempt are Muslims. All were working on the basis of Islamic theology. Why must officials continue not to notice this? To ignore this is to give up voluntarily the one thing that may make it possible to spot the perpetrators of a terror attack before it happens, and head it off. In other words, it is suicidal."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23910


Thursday, August 17, 2006

 

"Saying No to 'Climate Porn'?

"If it bleeds, it leads" isn't working for a discredited media like it used to.  However, they're still trying and if they can't do it legitimately they'll do it any way they can.

Seems we just might approach climate control with world population control on the leading edge beginning with organized religion which promotes no birth control measures. 

Next tree planting to replace old growth much of which reached its apex and needed to be replaced anyway.  Also just how many trees have been clear cut for development, for housing?  Beginning now it could make a lot of difference in coming years, despite drought and temp changes.

About the heat wave we've been through this summer .... heard from a pilot that the jet stream remained quite a bit north of where it usually flows, impeding a flow of cool air south. 

There are usually reasonable explanations for what's happening .... but they're never revealed by an agenda driven re-education machine known as the media.  BTW the re-education machine only works well for "useful-idiots."

embedded live links


 

"Saying No to 'Climate Porn'?
By Maurizio Morabito
Source Tech Central Station Daily

"In the movie Goodbye Lenin, a son works hard to protect his ailing mother from the fact that Communist East Germany disappeared after 1989.

 

In an analogy with sinister undertones, global-warming pessimists advocating "climate-friendly behaviour" (CFB) are now being encouraged to make-believe their own reality, building for all of us an almost certainly gloomy future. Armed with propaganda rather than rational persuasion, they are advocating an orthodoxy reminiscent of some past Communist States.

 

The report "Warm Words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it better?" has just been published by the self-styled "UK's leading progressive think-tank", the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), "as part of its project on how to stimulate" CFB in the UK.

 

The report tries to answer the question "How could the way climate change is communicated be improved?" The authors Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit looked at "popular [UK] media coverage of climate change" in late 2005-early 2006 (some 600 press articles, plus another 100 items from TV, radio, and web sites) to conclude that "many of the existing approaches to climate change communications clearly seem unproductive".

 

As experts in the commercial application of linguistic and discourse analysis they recognize that "the climate change discourse in the UK today looks confusing, contradictory and chaotic"; that "the overarching message for the lay public is that in fact, nobody really knows"; and that ultimately the "battle" (to stimulate CFB) is "not won".

 

Particularly scathing words are reserved for "the alarmist repertoire - as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond human control [...] secretly thrilling - effectively a form of 'climate porn'." This obvious problem has been raised before in environmentalist circles. New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof wrote in 2005 about the possible suicide by catastrophic, almost millenarian environmentalism. At the same time, UK sustainable development consultancy Futerra published its report "The Rules of the Game: Principles of Climate Change Communications" asking for a more positive message to be linked to messages on CFB.

 

Still, alarmism remains the most common form of climate change reporting: stories focus on disappearing species, uncontrollable pests, rising seas, floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, violent storms, scarce food/jobs/resources, and forecasts of millions of human deaths.

 

Articles and books by renowned scientists are routinely menacing with titles like The End of Nature (Bill McKibben, Bloomsbury 2003) and The Threat to the Planet (Jim Hansen, New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006). Supposedly serious British media outlets don't think twice about reporting the absurd, like the Amazon rainforest incapable of sustaining a couple of years of drought (The Independent, July 23, 2006) or coral reefs needing water temperatures not to vary more than 2 degrees Celsius (BBC News, Feb 21, 2004).

 

It is not clear why climate porn should be the norm. Are newspapers attracted by the "titillation" consciously or otherwise, to increase sales? Are some scientists attempting clumsy forays into policy making? Perhaps, or perhaps it's also about getting one's "pet issue" recognized in a world full of other scares.

 

Anyway, even the IPPR is now forced to recognize that climate porn is not the way forward. Ereaut and Segnit go as far as to implicitly recognize that possibly climate change catastrophism is "another apocalyptic construction [...] perhaps a figment of our cultural imaginations". And obviously there is simply no mass movement favoring wholesale curb of CO2 emissions: despite all predictions of doom unless they repent, abandon sinful technology and change their ways away from carbon dioxide, people still use cars, air conditioners and gas for cooking and heating:.

 

What are fashion-friendly governments such as the UK's to do then to entice CFB in the masses? After their promising start Ereaut and Segnit stick unfortunately to the realm of sheer propaganda, recommending "to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement".

 

They suggest we: "treat the argument as having been won, at least for popular communications"; convince people that "climate-friendly behaviors" are "normal, natural, right and 'ours'...the kinds of things that people like us do"; and treat "positive climate behaviours" as marketeers treat "buying and consuming".

 

In other words, those advocating CFB are encouraged to fabricate their own reality, to pretend having won a debate they haven't; and to fool the masses into buying more soap, ahem, into getting rid of their cars, stopping using energy and doing whatever else a "positive climate behaviour" might entail, with enthusiasm and as a matter of course.

 

Is this really an effective way forward? It is, only in the minds of those assuming (in yet another reminiscence of Communist ideology) that people are not clever enough to understand that an enticing propaganda is still propaganda.

 

Soap-like political propaganda makes for no good policy either. Do the authors of "Warm Words" realize that those recommendations seal the fate of climate change activism to the area of belief, rather than rational care of the world we live in? What kind of planet will CFB propaganda provide us? As reported by Robert L Bradley Jr. in "Al Gore's telling whoppers again", "isn't it suspicious that the problem is always individual behavior, and the solution is always government action?" And in fact, the current UK government is busy showing the way never having truly renounced its big-government ideology.

 

British Environment Minister David Miliband is seriously considering curbing freedom and increasing bureaucracy by distributing trendy, unworkable CO2 emission cards. At the same time, the Department for Trade and Industry is ominously working to indoctrinate "children and 'maybe' even their parents in The Right Way to Behave" (James Woudhuysen, Windmills of the mind, July 31, 2006) by building solar power systems on classroom roofs. This being the UK, expect low-quality moral tales on CO2 on TV soon.

 

Is the terrain being prepared for zealot eco-revolutionaries soon to remove most freedoms and a wide range of technological achievements, imposing us a future "eco-friendly" life of pain, illness, manual labour and struggle, with the belief that human ingenuity is an evil that will destroy the planet instead than improve our lives?

 

Is this Catastrophism too? Perhaps. But who would have thought 100 years ago of the upcoming Golden Age of Nazism and Communism, doctrines getting ready to kill millions of people: having scientifically proclaimed themselves to be "for the good of humanity"?

 

The author is a journalist, IT consultant and radio talk show host. His blog can be read at http://omnologos.wordpress.com (in English) and http://mauriziomorabito.wordpress.com (in Italian).

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081606E

 


Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

'Hybrid Mutant' Found Dead in Maine

Link via  http://www.drudgereport.com/  with a photo on that page.  If it drops off it's sometimes available in their archives.
'Hybrid Mutant' Found Dead in Maine http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/16/D8JHRSVO5.html

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

Suspicious Container in Seattle Port, Terminal Evacuated

From Michelle Malkin's blog

 
"Suspicious Container in Seattle Port, Terminal Evacuated

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

"Chinese Regime Eyes Texas Port Facilities

"Chinese Regime Eyes Texas Port Facilities

August 6, 2006
American Free press

"The Chinese are eyeing facilities in Texas to further their economic invasion of the United States.

Negotiations are under way for communist Beijing to utilize as a “logistics hub” the former Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, which was closed in 1995 during the Clinton administration’s base reduction program.

If the deal is consummated the Chinese will also gain access to two major Texas ports at Corpus Christi and Houston on the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico, an 11,000-foot-long airstrip, which is part of the Kelly base facilities, rail links with railcar switching facilities and links with five interstate highways. The Chinese are keenly interested in the deal because the San Antonio base will help facilitate its trade with Mexico.

San Antonio will give China access to a highway corridor along I-35, linking San Antonio to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which is just across the border from Laredo in west Texas.

Nuevo Laredo is a major staging ground for Mexican drug cartels, which have fostered an atmosphere of lawlessness in the city. Almost daily people, including police, are shot in the streets. In addition, frequent clashes occur between drug smugglers and U.S. Border Patrol and state and local police on the U.S. side of the border in Laredo.

There have also been reports that Chinese military units have been operating with Mexican army troops, who assist the drug smugglers and have made incursions into the United States.

“San Antonio is a strategic site for commerce between China and the United States and for the exportation of Chinese products to Mexico and Latin America,” Zhou Ming, general director of the Chinese State Agency of Promotions and Chinese Investments, said after a Chinese delegation visited San Antonio last year, according to a report in the Spanish-language newspaper Rumbo, which reports on activities in Mexico and U.S. border states.

Like most Chinese industrial, investment and commerce kingpins, Ming has ties to the People’s Liberation Army, which controls most industry in China with much of the profits going to build up the Chinese military.

Considerable slave labor is used, making it impossible for U.S. workers to compete.

A year ago, San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger and other municipal officials traveled to China to promote the former air base facilities, now renamed the San Antonio Port Authority.

The mayor’s office is working with the Port Authority, the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio and the San Antonio based Omega Group International, which maintains offices in Austin, Texas, San Francisco, Mexico City and Beijing and Qingdao, China.

According to Rumbo, Omega International sponsored visits by Chinese officials last year to San Antonio. J.J. Saulino, press secretary to Hardberger, told AFP that the mayor is interested in the project and traveled to Guangdong province in China to promote it.

Jorge Canavati, vice president of the San Antonio Port Authority, claimed the Rumbo article was “not accurate” and abrasively brushed off questions about the effort to get the Chinese into the former U.S. air base facilities.

The former air base, often referred to as a “dry port” or an “inland port,” because it is not a coastal facility or located on a navigable waterway, “has no limits for the products, from toys to heavy equipment [from China],” Vivian Lee, president of the Omega Group, was quoted by Rumbo as saying.

AFP was told by Rogello Garcia, a spokesman for the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio, that a Chinese delegation was in San Antonio last spring to further work out details of the project.

Kelly Air Force Base was opened in 1916 as a training facility. Nearby Lackland Air Force Base was a spin-off from Kelly. The Texas Air National Guard 149th Fighter Wing still utilizes the facility, along with the Air Force Reserve 433rd Airlift Wing.

A spokesperson with the Port Authority told AFP that the base has been used to repair and maintain C-5A Galaxy transport planes, which are the largest aircraft in the Air Force. The base has an 11,000-foot runway to accommodate the C-5A, which the military shares with the Port Authority.

In addition to the airstrip, the Port Authority has a 1,200-acre yard operated by the Union Pacific Railroad. The Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad is also linked to the inland port.

A retired Air Force intelligence officer told AFP that taking over the San Antonio base would likely streamline Chinese exports to the United States and would give them access to ports in Houston and Corpus Christi on the Gulf coast.

The Chinese already control the Panama Canal, through the Hutchison-Whampoa Company, and maintain a major airfield and port facility at Freeport, Bahamas, where Hutchison-Whampoa has a contract through the
Bush administration to provide security for container ships bound for U.S. ports on the East Coast.

Chinese state-owned shipping company Cosco has taken over port facilities and warehousing space at the California ports of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Long Beach. This is one of the reasons cited for China’s interest in the San Antonio inland port, as it has extensive space available for constructing warehouse buildings. According to Port Authority sources, a 108,800-square-foot warehouse facility has already been built at the former base at a cost of $5 million and a slightly smaller 102,400-squarefoot building has also been built.


Best known for his ground-breaking work exposing the U.S. government’s abandonment of American POWs and MIAs in Korea and Vietnam, Mike Blair specializes in military affairs and gunowners’ rights, Blair was cited by Project Censored for having uncovered the top “most censored” story of 1990—a scheme to scuttle the Bill of Rights in the name of “fighting crime.”

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/chinese_regime_eyes_texas_port.html

http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/06_Global/060816.CH.TX.port.html 


Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

video "Green Helmet acting as cynical movie director in qana

Found on LittleGreenFootballs via Powerline.


Green Helmet Admits Staging Photos, AP Spins Furiously

Salam Daher, the Green Helmet Guy, admits pimping dead bodies for staged photos.

The AP’s bureau chief in Iran, Kathy Gannon, tries her best to spin the story. (Hat tip: Allahpundit.)

 

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php


 

"Green Helmet acting as cynical movie director in qana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vPAkc5CLgc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Elittlegreenfootballs%2Ecom%2Fweblog%2Fweblog%2Ephp


Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

Israel may not shoot back without permission

Needless to say the UN needs to be cleaned out with a Roto-Rooter and restructured from the ground up.  Then perhaps it and its astute proclamations may make sense in a world not in the "Twilight Zone."


"Annan to Israel: Ask me first
Israel may not shoot back without permission

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 


By Stan Goodenough
August 15, 2006


If Hizb'allah breaks the ceasefire - as they already have - and shoots at Israeli citizens or population centers, territory or forces, the IDF may in most cases not respond before informing the United Nations Secretary General of the violation, and obtaining his permission to shoot back.

This is the expectation of Kofi Annan, as spelled out in a letter from him to the sovereign government of the State of Israel earlier this week.

Annan said Israel and Lebanon must immediately inform him if either side has been fired upon, giving as much detail as possible, but "refraining from responding except where clearly required in immediate self-defense."

Under the terms of the ceasefire, when Israel is firing on Hizb'allah Israel is firing on Lebanon.

Annan is an openly pro-Arab world leader who has on more than one occasion accused Israel of deliberately killing civilians and UN peacekeepers, but has never been heard to unequivocally and passionately denounce acts of Arab terrorism against Jews.

While the Hizb'allah's invasion of sovereign Israeli territory on July 12 - when it killed eight IDF soldiers and kidnapped two - and its raining down of nearly 4,000 missiles deliberately on Israeli civilians in their homes constitute war crimes, Annan's United Nations at no time during the 33-day long conflict discussed indicting Hizb'allah or condemning the Lebanese government for permitting these war crimes to take place.

Annan's letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert contains an additional list of "requirements" from this man, who seeks to establish himself as the impartial ceasefire supervisor, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post Tuesday.

Thus he also demands of Israel that its forces no longer occupy, or seek to occupy, any additional territory on the Lebanese side. Should Israel observe Hizb'allah forces restocking their rocket supplies north of the Litani River, for example, IDF forces may not cross that boundary to deal with the threat.

According to a report in Ha'aretz Tuesday, a compromise agreement is currently "being hammered out between Hizb'allah and the Lebanese government [that] would allow the Shi'ite guerillas to keep hidden weapons in south Lebanon."

Israel must furthermore give Annan a detailed description of precisely where all its armor and soldiers were deployed at the moment the ceasefire came into effect. Israel may not change the number or location of its troops without informing the UN chief.

In this way Annan believes he will be able to closely police Israel to ensure its compliance.

He plans to watch Israel like a hawk.

Precisely what he plans to do about infractions on the other side is not clear.

Should any firing occur, Annan said in his letter, "the UN undertakes to bring, in an impartial manner, such incidents to the attention of the Security Council as quickly as possible."

Since the ceasefire went into effect early Monday, at least two Hizb'allah terrorists have been killed after firing on IDF forces in southern Lebanon.

Overnight Monday Hizb'allah fired 10 Katyusha rockets and at least four mortars at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

This is in line with Hizb'allah leader Hassan Nasrallah's vow to keep attacking Israeli forces as long as a single IDF soldier remains in Lebanese territory.

And it has been and will continue to be made possible by the refusal of Lebanese Prime Minister Hannah Siniora, as spelled out by him Monday, to in any way try to disarm the Hizb'allah.

Annan has thus far not indicated whether or when he will bring this matter to the attention of the Security Council. "

http://www.jnewswire.com/article/1026 


Wednesday, August 16, 2006

 

"Give Us Shari'a, UK Muslim Leaders Tell Gov't

Seems the mafia uses a similar tactic "paying for protection" but this one is saying the violence will stop if moderates can be in control of everything. 

Smacks of racketeering, extortion IMHO.

Anyone believing that BS "offer" might want to apply for this job opening ........    


"Give Us Shari'a, UK Muslim Leaders Tell Gov't
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
August 16, 2006

"(CNSNews.com) - British Muslim leaders meeting with government representatives to discuss ways of combating extremism are calling for the establishment of Islamic law (shari'a) to govern Muslims' family life.

"We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince [Muslim] young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens," said Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organizations of the U.K. and Ireland.

Pasha was among some 30 Muslim leaders, described as moderates, who met with Ruth Kelly, the minister responsible for communities, amid raging debate in the country over what to do about the terror threat.

The government is appealing to Muslim figures to work harder to prevent extremist views from taking root in their communities, particularly among young people.

The campaign was accelerated after the July 2005 London bombings, and given new urgency in recent days after police discovered what they said was a conspiracy to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft, killing thousands of air passengers and crew.

As of Tuesday, police were holding 24 suspects, all reported to be Muslims.

Pasha stressed that he was calling for the introduction of shari'a codes covering marriage and family life, and not for criminal offenses.

Shari'a is controversial because it provides for punishments including limb amputation for theft and death for apostasy. The legal code is applied in varying degrees in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Shari'a in family affairs deals with issues such as dowry, inheritance and sharing of assets. In some traditions it also allows men to beat wives who refuse to obey them and won't submit to non-physical admonition, and to end a marriage by declaring "I divorce you" three times.

Pasha said Muslim leaders were ready to cooperate with the government, but wanted a partnership."They should understand our problems then we will understand their problems."

Other Muslim leaders, however, disagreed. Khalid Mahmood, one of four Muslim lawmakers in the House of Commons, said shari'a could not apply in Britain because it was not an Islamic state.

An ICM poll of British Muslims earlier this year found 40 percent of respondents supported the introduction of shari'a in predominantly Muslim areas of Britain, while 41 percent were opposed to the idea.

About 2.7 percent of Britain's 60 million people are Muslims. In another opinion survey of Muslims this year, by polling company NOP, 22 percent of respondents agreed that the London bombings, which killed 52 people, were justified because of Britain's foreign policies. Among Muslims aged under 45, the figure rose to 31 percent.

Exposure of the airline bomb plot led to the introduction of unprecedented security measures at British airports, causing major disruption.

Media reports say the government is considering introducing a system of "profiling," to ensure security staff focus attention on those considered more likely to be suspect -- because of behavior or ethnic/religious background -- and so ease congestion at airports over the longer term. The government has not confirmed the reports.

Muslim Council of Britain General Secretary Muhammad Abdul Bari said the proposal could have the effect of discouraging Muslims from cooperating with police. If profiling was based on race or religion, it would be wrong, he told Sky News.

In another meeting this week, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott met with Muslim lawmakers who earlier had put their names to an open letter saying the government's foreign policies were providing "ammunition to extremists."

The letter, whose signatories included representatives of all major mainstream Muslim organizations, sparked a strong backlash from ministers, who said foreign policy could not be dictated by terrorists.

Heritage Foundation scholar Nile Gardiner called the letter a wake-up call to the government.

"It shatters any illusions that the government's policy of engagement with leading 'moderate' Muslim groups since the 2005 London bombings has reaped any benefits," he said in a memo.

Gardiner urged the British government to "reject the message of appeasement" and for inquiries to be made into links between leading Muslim groups and radical organizations and individuals.

"Britain needs a new generation of Muslim leaders who are untainted by association with, or sympathy for, Islamic extremism and who are proud of their British identity," he said.

"They must be willing to condemn terrorism unequivocally and help root out extremists from Muslim communities."
 http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200608/INT20060816a.html

Monday, August 14, 2006

 

"Humanist Myopia: Blaming Bush

"Humanist Myopia: Blaming Bush
August 13th, 2006
By William J. Becker, Jr
Source The American Thinker

 

"In an opening scene of David Lynch’s 1986 perverse but relevant film Blue Velvet, a man is watering his front lawn on what appears to be a halcyon suburban day in the American town of Lumberton.  It’s a carefree scene that follows a montage of similarly placid images. A white picket fence guards a bed of red roses framed by blue sky.  A crossing guard raising a stop sign waives schoolchildren safely through a neighborhood intersection.  A fireman smiles and waves from the sideboard of his old fashioned fire truck.  These scenes imagine an America lost, a tranquilized America where picket fences, crossing guards and firemen guarantee all the protection one requires to meet life’s perils.

But the ersatz tranquility conceals a hidden horror. The garden hose catches in a bramble just as the man is seized with a stroke.  Falling to the ground, the camera joins him, then burrows into the grass endoscopically probing the lawn’s dark jungle.  It settles on a nest of ravenous insects, their ghastly clamor amplified for effect.  Later in the film, the peaceful town is shown to be harboring a treacherous criminal element.

The message?  We aren’t always aware of the evil that surrounds us.  But for the liberal left in America, for useful idiots like Mike Wallace and Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont, and for mainstream media, the snarling thicket of Islamofascism in our midst is too far below the surface to worry much about.  The reason America faces danger is all Bush’s fault, because, unlike Bill Clinton, Bush wouldn’t ignore it.

The left has been extraordinarily successful at pinning blame on President George W. Bush for engineering the current state of global chaos, and, in a way, they have a point.  Like a cosmic exterminator, Bush has lifted the floorboards concealing the plague under America’s house.  He alone is responsible for reversing the world’s anesthetic complacency and focusing its attention on the subterranean threat.  And for that, the liberal left says “Blame Bush.”  But that’s all they seem to say.

As tempting as it might be to single Bush out for inventing war, shredding the Bill of Rights, forging a conspiratorial alliance with big business and people of faith, and consolidating power in the hands of a rogue cabal of nefarious intimates (Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld), the Blame Bush crowd can never seem to get enough of blaming Bush.  He is responsible for big oil so he seeks out conflict and when he finds it, he can’t wait to invade your privacy.  This unforgiving desire to demonize one man inspires sometimes—more often than not—hilariously nutty attacks.

On the website secularhumanist.com, for example, a video, derived from a 2003 article appearing in the secular humanist Free Inquiry Magazine, claims that Bush is a fascist by objective definitional standards.  The premise for this far-fetched indictment in which Bush is unsubtly compared with Hitler and selectively matched Third Reich footage with a still shot of him in a Nazi salute (he was merely raising his arm when the photo was taken), is based on a 14-point theory that charges him with:

• Stoking a “powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism” by, among other things, endorsing prominent displays of flags and flag lapel pins and showing pride in our military;

• Showing “disdain for the importance of human rights” by somehow nurturing the conditions necessary for abuses at Abu Ghraib, Camp Gitmo and elsewhere;

• “Scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems” by labeling opponents of his “regime” terrorists;

• Using the military to “assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite”;

• Promoting “rampant sexism” through anti-abortion and homophobic policies;

• Controlling the mass media (I’m not kidding!);

• Obsessing over national security (Again, you can’t make this stuff up!);

• Aligning with the predominant religion of the nation (Just keeps getting weirder!);

• Promoting big business, especially the oil industry;

• Marginalizing labor unions;

• Disdaining intellectuals and the arts;

• Obsessing over crime and punishment;

• Fostering “rampant cronyism and corruption”; and

• Holding fraudulent elections (Here, a shot of Kathryn Harris appears, implying that she rigged the election and stole it for Bush).

Less a definition of fascism, this argument, shorn of any critical reasoning, is a liberal hate manifesto.  Liberals hate the idea of a military because it presumes conflict may occur, and, contrary to everything history has shown, they believe America can isolate itself from international threats.  They deride accountability for crimes because it encroaches on their personal freedom to behave irresponsibly in ways that might offend or injure others.  They scorn religious faith for the same reason. Military bad, intellectuals good seems to sum it up. 

Missing from this indictment and the protean examples littering the liberal blogosphere is any mention of the threat of actual fascism in the form of Islamofascism, the tragedy of 9/11, the cut-and-run failures of Mogadishu, the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut by Hezbollah, etc., the alliance of America-hating megalomaniacs leading Iran, North Korea and Venezuela into nuclear ascendancy, the anti-Semitic and anti-democratic forces aligned against western civilization, Wahhabism, the arms underground, al-Qaeda, the history of war, the politics of war or any other relevant idea. 

Liberals never understood, much less are apt to remember or appreciate, how in 1998, President Bill Clinton launched a cruise missile attack against a chemical plant in Khartoum, Sudan to distract attention from  Monica Lewinsky’s grand jury testimony relating to Clinton’s perjury. As part of the same operation, the U.S. killed civilians targeting terrorist training camps in Afghanistan with cruise missiles.  Instead, the left was busy defending Clinton for compromising his office and the nation’s Oval Office, a compromise they simplistically dismiss as benign.  “Blame Clinton” was an absent motif in the Nineties because, as the world since has discovered, he were merely watering the lawn.  The threat of a future holocaust in our time now seems imaginable due to his absent leadership.

Liberals were MIA then as they are today when the anti-Semitic UN refuses to enforce resolutions against Iraq and Lebanon, forcing the U.S. and Israel into war. The bumper sticker mindset of liberal orthodoxy is manacled by a narrow vision of history, geopolitical naiveté, intellectual dishonesty and an indifference to America’s responsibility around the world.  They swoon over “rights” and “freedom” but don’t believe these ideals need to be earned or protected.

For Bush, this means that every Dan Rather or Pinch Sulzberger with an agenda will blame him for the sky falling.  And the reason for this is obvious.  It is easier to target an individual than it is to target an idea or a policy, which liberals fail miserably at.  When they attempt it, trite commentary on fascism is the asinine result.  One can only imagine what kind of world we might have if those who blame Bush for the state of the planet fixed the blame where it belongs.

Around the corner in my neighborhood is a sign on someone’s front lawn promoting impeachbush.org., a movement currently without traction that could grab the turf  in the 2006 elections.  But liberals are no match for the bogeyman they’ve invented.  President Ronald Reagan was described as the “Teflon” president because the slings and arrows never seemed to wound him.  Bush is an equal to Reagan, not in terms of popularity, but in respect to the power of prayer and faith in God to deflect the endless attacks against him.  This, of course, infuriates liberals, who yearn for the satisfaction of hearing Bush respond to just one of them.

But he doesn’t, because he is leading, and history, not shortsightedness, will judge that leadership.  Bush, unlike, say Cynthia McKinney, has known this truism all along.  So as the Blame Bush movement slogs forward, it will have no one to blame but itself when its power diminishes in November or when the next big terror attack succeeds."

William J. Becker, Jr., is an attorney in Los Angeles, and a past contributor to The American Thinker. "

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5759


posted by konane  # 10:51 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 14, 2006

 

"They Are Fascists

I hope more begin to speak out.



"They Are Fascists
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

14/08/2006


Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
the general manager of Al -Arabiya television. Mr. Al Rashed is also the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in the daily newspapers of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is a US post-graduate degree in mass communications. He has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs. He is currently based in Dubai. 

"Many of us are only concerned with reputation and image, our image in the media, and the reputation of the Muslims in the world, but they do not care about reforming the original source, their children.

When US President George W. Bush described those who plotted to kill thousands of passengers in ten airliners as Muslim fascists, protests from a number of Islamic societies in the west and the east were voiced against this description.

What is wrong with using a bad adjective to describe a terrorist as long as he is willing to personally call himself an Islamist; declares his stance, schemes, and aims; while his supporters publicly call for killing of those whom they consider infidels, or disagree with them religiously or politically.

The strange thing is that the protesting groups, which held a press conference, would better have held it to denounce the deeds of those affiliated to Islam, who harmed all Muslims and Islam.

Bush did not say that the Muslims were fascists; he said that the Muslim fascists were the problem, i.e. he distinguished between an extremist group and the general innocent peaceful Muslims. Yes, fascism is a word that has bad connotations, and is used here to approximate the meaning to the listeners. The westerners know that fascism is an extremist nationalist movement, which emerged from the European society, and was responsible for destructive wars caused by its premises, which are based on discrimination, racism and hatred. This approximation is correct when you apply it to the literature of the Islamic extremists. The same as the Europeans fought fascism and the fascists by word and by gunpowder, the world will fight the extremist Islamists. This is what the good Muslims, who are at the forefront of those hunting down Al-Qaeda, do; the same as the Muslim who exposed the latest conspiracy to hijack the airliners, when he hastened to inform the security authorities when he suspected what was happening in the neighborhood.

This is why I do not understand what those people - who want to protect reputation and image from the westerners - want to call the Muslim extremists who resort to violence? Do they want to call them Khawarij (The earliest Islamic sect, which traces its beginning to a religious-political controversy over the Caliphate)? The problem is that no one (in the west) understands its historical meaning. Do they call them by their names only, such as Osama, Ayman, Muhammad, and Zamani? Do they call them according to the sarcastic Egyptian way: "people who should remain nameless?"

Describing them as fascists in the west is better than all the bad adjectives that rightly or wrongly have been attributed to them. This is because as far as the westerners are concerned, fascism means a specifically defined group that still lives within their societies, is from their ethnic groups and religion, and hence distinguishes between them and the others.

What is more important than preoccupation with preserving the image is to rectify the situation, and to confront the extremists among us. The majority of the westerners did not know anything about Islam and Muslims until Bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, Muhammad Ata, and the culprits of the London explosions called themselves Islamists, and started to use the Koran and the Islamic historical nomenclatures. You cannot call the Red Brigades Movement anything g other than what they call themselves, and there is no escape from calling them Italian communists; the same applies to the National Front in Britain, which is described as a Nazi and fascist movement.

At the end, describing rotten apples as rotten does not make the people hate eating good apples. The same applies to the Muslims; there are one billion Muslims in the world, and the world has no option other than dealing with them, and hunting down the evil minority among them. We have wasted a long time since the seventies in being preoccupied with protesting against nomenclatures and images. This is despite the fact that these people hijack civilian airliners, kill people in restaurants, and justify their actions by using pan-Arab or Islamic descriptions. To describe a Muslim as terrorist is natural if he is a terrorist, the same as you do with a Colombian drug smuggler, an Italian Mafioso, a Russian butcher, a British Nazi, or a US right-wing extremist.

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=5994


posted by konane  # 10:39 AM 2 comments

Saturday, August 12, 2006

 

"Uncertain Trumpets

"Uncertain Trumpets

Source INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 8/11/2006

"Leadership: If the foiled airline bomb plot sounded familiar, it should. In 1995, al-Qaida planned the same thing as the Clinton administration slept. Democrats hope to press the snooze button again in November.

The 1995 plot was uncovered when Ramzi Yousef, subsequently convicted for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, hastily fled a burning Manila apartment, leaving behind bomb materials and a laptop with disks containing plans for something called Project Bojinka — the Arabic word for "loud explosion."

The plot was to blow up 11 American jetliners over the Pacific Ocean, then crash a plane into CIA headquarters — a mission to be carried out by a Pakistani pilot who had trained at flight schools in North Carolina, Texas and New York. Sound familiar?

One would have thought that after al-Qaida had tried to blow up the WTC in 1993 and was discovered to be plotting to blow up airliners and fly them into buildings, the Clinton administration would have connected the dots and taken action. But it didn't.

A disgusted Philippine Gen. Avelino Razon was so shocked at 9-11 that he called a hasty press conference in Manila. "We told the Americans about the plans to turn planes into flying bombs as far back as 1995," he complained. "Why didn't they pay attention?"

We saw the fruits of Democratic foreign policy on Oct. 3-4, 1993, when the armed forces of the world's only superpower engaged in battle with the forces of Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Adid in the streets of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.

After a 15-hour battle, 18 Americans were killed and 80 wounded. One dead U.S. soldier was dragged through the streets in an act designed to humiliate the U.S. in the jihadist world. There was no military response to the humiliation. Osama bin Laden was watching.

On June 25, 1996, terrorists struck Khobar Towers, a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 soldiers.

In 1998, the year of Monica Lewinsky, al-Qaida operatives blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 245 and injuring 5,000.

On Oct. 12, 2000, the warship USS Cole was bombed while refueling in Yemen, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39. All were acts of war, yet the response to each was to do nothing.

This is the party of Sen. Harry Reid, who once boasted after a filibuster: "We killed the Patriot Act." It is the party of Sen. Russ Feingold, who said on the Senate floor: "Let me make one final point about sneak-and-peek warrants. Don't be fooled for a minute into believing that this power is needed. It's not."

It is a party that has appeased terrorists and dictators for decades, which has opposed every terror-fighting tool, including the tracking of terrorist money through foreign banks, and whose entire strategy in the war on terror is: "Bush is bad."

It is the party of DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who said after the New York Times revealed a wartime secret to the enemy, the NSA surveillance program: "We don't need a big brother." But ironically, such surveillance played a key role in foiling the latest plot.

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports: "U.S. officials publicly congratulated Britain for the arrest, but privately two officials suggested that electronic surveillance of terror suspects in Pakistan and Britain provided the initial clues to the plot."

And Time magazine reported: "MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications."

Democrats who whined after 9-11 about what President Bush knew and when he knew it forget about the 1995 plot. They also forget it was Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department, who erected the famous "wall" between intelligence and law enforcement, making "connecting the dots" before 9-11 a virtual impossibility.

She wrote the 1995 memo that helped establish what former Attorney General John Ashcroft testified was the "single greatest structural cause" of Sept. 11 — "the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents," Ashcroft said. "Government erected this wall. Government buttressed this wall. And before Sept. 11, government was blinded by this wall."

Bush tore down that wall just as Ronald Reagan provided the impetus that led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the "evil empire" that built it. It was Reagan who insisted we deploy Pershing missiles in Europe to counter the Soviet SS-20 threat while the likes of John Kerry were pushing for a nuclear freeze.

The two nuclear threats we now face — from Iran and North Korea — both have Jimmy Carter's fingerprints all over them. It was Carter who withdrew U.S. support from our staunch ally, the Shah of Iran, paving the way for the Ayatollah Khomeini and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wants to nuke Israel.

In 1994, Carter jetted off to North Korea to broker a deal Clinton embraced whereby the last Stalinist nation would give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for a basket of goodies that included food, oil and modern nuclear reactors. It was Clinton's administration, with Carter's assistance, that was responsible for the nuclear threat Pyongyang now poses.

It was no coincidence that 9-11 occurred after decades of Democratic incompetence and appeasement. It's no accident there has not been another such attack on American soil under Bush.

If the airline bomb plot had been uncovered a week earlier, Joe Lieberman might have won his primary. He knew Iraq wasn't a "distraction" from the war on terror, but a central front in it. He could connect the dots and see the bombings in Baghdad and Bombay and Bali were related.

He could see that whether the bombings were at hotels in Amman, Jordan, or in the subways of London, or in the train stations of Madrid, they were all connected, all part of the same war declared by the enemies of freedom and civilization. Whether it be Hamas, or Hezbollah or al-Qaida, they want to slay the infidels, and that includes all of us.

Like Reagan, Lieberman has not left the Democratic Party. It has left him — for the likes of John Murtha, George Soros and George McGovern. Lieberman is not welcome in the Democratic Party. And such a party does not deserve being given the reins of power in the middle of a war its policies helped create."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=240185954744914


posted by konane  # 11:14 AM 2 comments

Saturday, August 12, 2006

 

"Muslims urge Blair to end the violence

How much more "veiled" could this be????????? 


"Muslims urge Blair to end the violence

(Filed: 12/08/2006)

 

"Tony Blair has been urged to change UK foreign policy and do more to end the violence in the Middle East.

A letter to the Prime Minister from some of Britain's most influential Muslims, which appears as a full-page advert in some national newspapers, says current government policy gives "ammunition to extremists" and may put British citizens at risk of attack, both in the UK and abroad.

The 38 Muslim groups which signed the letter include the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain, the British Muslim Forum, the British Muslim Forum and the Muslim Solidarity Committee.

Other signatories include three of the four Muslim MPs - Sadiq Khan, Shahid Malik and Mohammed Sarwar - as well as three of the four Muslim members of the House of Lords - Lord Patel of Blackburn, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham and Baroness Uddin.

It says attacks on civilians are never justified and calls on Mr Blair to "show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion".

Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP for Tooting, said the Government's current Middle East policy was seen by many people as being "unfair and unjust".

He said: "This government has had some major foreign policy successes that have helped make the world a better place. But current policy on the Middle East is seen by almost everyone I speak to as unfair and unjust.

Dr Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain and one of the signatories, said: "As Muslims we condemn attacks on civilians wherever they happen.

"We hope the government will do more to ensure its policy doesn't allow people to believe that the lives of some civilians are worth more to it than others."

The letter to the Prime Minister

(Filed: 12/08/2006)

 

Prime Minister,

As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens.

It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.

To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.

The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.

Attacking civilians is never justified. This message is a global one. We urge the Prime Minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion.

Such a move would make us all safer. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BMZ3AWO3ASRU1QFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/08/12/umuslims2.xml


posted by konane  # 11:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, August 11, 2006

 

"When Donkeys Turn into One-Trick Ponies

Haven't seen it better stated than this.


 

"When Donkeys Turn into One-Trick Ponies
By Frank Salvato
CNSNews.com Commentary
August 11, 2006

" While the circumstances surrounding the August 9 primary elections in Georgia and Connecticut were quite notable in and of themselves, the more publicized of the two -- the race between Ned Lamont and Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut -- exposed a cancerous vulnerability within the Democratic Party.

More a hostile takeover than an ideological revolution, the anti-war left, backed by big money progressive operatives, has made its move to take control of the party. Should rank-and-file Democrats allow this to happen, it could be disastrous for them and for the country.

No doubt, many in the Democratic Party aren't weeping over the defeat of progressive-leftist Cynthia McKinney. It's likelier that countless numbers of them, especially those elected to office, are relieved by the fact McKinney has to pack her boxing gloves for her trip back to Georgia, closing the book -- again -- on an embarrassing chapter in Democratic politics.

It is safe to assume, however, that McKinney will be just fine in the private sector. We shouldn't be surprised if she turns up on MoveOn.org's version of "The View" along side Cindy Sheehan, Susan Sarandon and Cher, tossing vitriol at anyone who doesn't "testify" in agreement with their socialist leanings.

No, the primary results that should send shivers down the spines of every rational thinking American, Republican and Democrat, Independent and Libertarian, are the ones that saw the Democratic Party of Connecticut abandon Joe Lieberman, the National Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate in 2000, for an unknown, one-trick pony, anti-war candidate, Ned Lamont.

In a recent interview with Greg Allen on The Right Balance radio program, former New York Mayor Ed Koch stated his fear that the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party was "seeking to take over the party again." He further lamented that this move would cost Democrats their chance of capturing the House and/or the Senate in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Mayor Koch went on to say that he has reached out to Sen. Lieberman's campaign offering to do "as much as [he] can to get Joe Lieberman elected as an independent Democrat in the General Election."

While the chances are very good that Joe Lieberman will win as a third-party Independent candidate, there is most certainly a stench in the political wind, and that stench emanates from the rotting of the Democratic Party.

Once considered by many to be the party of the working man, the Democratic Party has turned into a conglomeration of special interest groups that makes K Street in Washington DC look like fraternity row at Faber College in the National Lampoon movie, Animal House.

From NOW to ANSWER, ACORN to ELF, and NAMBLA to GLSEN; where yesterday saw Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and yes, Joseph Lieberman, as the standard-bearers of the Democratic Party, today they stand on the brink of heaping legitimacy on Michael Moore, Ward Churchill and Ted Rall; all of them anti-American, pro-Socialist and pathetically self-absorbed.

Perhaps the most pitiable aspect of this situation is the fact that the anti-war left can't recognize they are being used as pawns by those who count themselves among the "progressive" elitist class.

Where those of the anti-war left are singularly engaged against the necessary actions being undertaken in the global war against radical Islamist terrorism, quasi-socialists the likes of Peter Lewis and George Soros, progressive elitists whose only goal is the consolidation of power, lurk clandestinely behind the scenes funneling money to progressive candidates who share their vision of a one world order, a globalist doctrine and a lesser role for the United States in the world.

By donning the clothing of the "sheeple," these deceptive "wolves," by parroting the rhetoric of the anti-war movement, incite the na/'efve to cast their ballots for "change," doing so by pandering to their championed cause.

It has never been intelligent to vote for a one-issue "change" candidate. The elections of one-trick ponies in 1976 and 1992 saw our country diminished as a result. The inaction of Jimmy Carter in 1979 to quell the birth of the radical Islamist revolution in Iran has led us to the doorstep of Armageddon while the cowardice of Bill Clinton in Somalia empowered those who would pull the nuclear trigger.

In the end, the transformation of the donkey to one-trick pony, the hostile take-over of the Democratic Party by progressive elitists, stands as testimony to our own apathy and indifference. Where newly born democracies witness voter turnouts in the 90% range, we here in the United States are overjoyed with a voter turnout that breaks 50%. The cherished right of self-governance, born of the blood of patriots, cast aside by almost half of the American people because they simply can't be bothered.

If more of the American public took time to live up to the Constitutional obligation of civic responsibility, to explore for themselves the facts of the issues instead of abdicating that responsibility to an agenda-driven media and to investigate just who is soliciting our votes, perhaps we wouldn't be facing the possible downfall of a political party.

Then again, there is a game on tonight, isn't there. "

(Note: Since the writing of this article, British Authorities disrupted a terrorist plot to bomb multiple airliners causing a loss of life on parallel with the events of September 11th , 2001. This stands as a perfect example why one-trick pony, anti-war candidates stand as a direct threat to the safety of our nation and the world.) "

(Frank Salvato is managing editor of The New Media Journal.us.) "
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200608/COM20060811b.html
posted by konane  # 1:26 PM 0 comments

Friday, August 11, 2006

 

E.coli in prepackaged salad greens (not a joke)

For years have always made it a point to carefully re-wash any purchased salad greens even if they're labeled as washed.


"Unseen danger in bagged salads

E.coli in your veggies? At least 26 people in 3 states reportedly got sick

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12536902/

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/salad.asp.


posted by konane  # 12:47 PM 1 comments

Friday, August 11, 2006

 

"Reutersgate strikes other news outlets

Sloppy, biased, agenda driven, sensationalist journalism is now roosting on thier heads .......

  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!  No Pity!

 


Falsified photos video.

http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp

 



"Reutersgate strikes other news outlets
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL
Source Jerusalem Post

"At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media.

Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of the most esteemed media outlets.

More than a dozen accusations of staged or doctored photographs have made their way through various Web sites in the past several weeks. None has been treated by the news outlets as seriously as the original Reuters incident, which saw the photographer Adnin Hajj fired and over 900 of his photos removed from the Reuters wire list. But numerous other outlets - including the BBC, The New York Times and AP - have been forced to recall photos or change captions following inaccuracies pointed out in online forums.

The fact that the online community rather than fellow mainstream media has become a watchdog of accuracy has surprised many who originally derided blogs as being "devoid of accuracy."

"In a blog you don't have to be accurate to anyone but yourself and your readers," said Laya Millman from the Jewlicious.com blog. "There is a great deal of accountability because, if you get anything wrong, the readers will quickly, very quickly, point it out."

As was demonstrated in the case with the Reuters photograph, blogs come with their own teams of investigators: the thousands of readers who stream through the site. Within hours of Charles Johnson's posting on Little Green Footballs, readers of the Web site had gone to work uncovering an array of damning evidence against Hajj, the most serious of which - a second doctored photograph, an Israeli plane altered to make it look as though it was dropping a series of bombs - may have pushed Reuters to fire Hajj after initially announcing that the freelance photographer would be suspended. That photograph, which was discovered by blogger Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report, included an illustrated account of how the photos had been doctored.

Photographs whose veracity has been questioned by blogs in the past few weeks since Reutersgate began include:


Two pictures used by The Associated Press and Reuters, in which the same woman appeared to be crying over the destruction of her Beirut home. Distinguished by a red-checkered scarf and scar on her right cheek, the woman was pictured crying in front of two different locations two weeks apart.

Several photographs of a bombed bridge in Beirut which appear on Reuters and AFP with the different captions stating that the bridge had been bombed on July 18, July 24 and August 5. Bloggers claim that the striking image was photographed to look like several different bombings in order to make destruction in Beirut appear more severe.

In The New York Times photo essay "Attack on Tyre," a photograph of a man who appears dead is accompanied with the caption reading "bodies were still buried under the rubble." However, in a later photograph in the same series, the same man appears to be walking in the foreground of a photo. The Times issued a correction for the first photograph, stating that the man was injured.
Some claim that the online controversy over the photos has gotten out of hand, with many blogs now launching investigations and hurling accusations at a variety of news sources.

"These accusations can be very damning, and need to be handled with care and not thrown out by any angry blogger," said one anonymous poster on Little Green Footballs.

In the meantime, however, Little Green Footballs - along with many other online forums - has been flooded with investigations into mainstream media, with the entire army of its hundreds of thousands of readers eagerly at hand."

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1154525850241&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull 


posted by konane  # 11:18 AM 0 comments

Thursday, August 10, 2006

 

"Payback Time for the Lebanese Shia

Found this link on another site.  Interesting perspective from the inside looking out.


"Payback Time for the Lebanese Shia
Source Strategy Page
August 10, 2006:

"Hizbollah has no incentive to broadcast the extent of its injuries in the current war. The losses have been substantial. For example, Syrians have noted an enormous exodus of Lebanese Shia into Syria. Some 10-15 percent of Lebanon's Shia appear to have fled the areas of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, for refuge in Syria. They are not just getting away from Israeli bombs, but the rising possibility of another round of civil war with Lebanese Sunnis, Druze and Christians. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization, and for nearly two decades, other Lebanese have been on the receiving end of that terror. There are payback issues in play. Before Hizbollah attacked Israel, these issues were being worked out, but the deal involved Hizbollah disarming and giving up control of southern Lebanon. The Hizbollah militants didn't go for this, partly because they feared retaliation from Lebanese families they had terrorized (via murder, kidnappings or worse) over the last two decades. Better that all of Lebanon should suffer, than a few hundred Hizbollah thugs should pay for their crimes. The Lebanese know this, the Israelis know this, the international media ignores it. But it's these grudges that will destroy Hizbollah in the end. The Shia fleeing to Syria fear their fellow Lebanese more than they fear the Israelis.

Hizbollah doesn't have a large "army." Only a few thousand trained and trustworthy gunmen. About 20 percent of these have been killed or wounded so far. About half of the 70,000 man army is Shia, a consequence of depending on Syria to help form and train the army. That's one reason why most Lebanese don't trust their own army, and why the Israelis don't accept the Lebanese offer to send 15,000 of their soldiers into southern Lebanon to take over from Hizbollah. While the Shia Lebanese soldiers aren't all Hizbollah members, those that are Shia know that Hizbollah can reach their family members. Hizbollah is a terrorist organization, and good at that sort of thing.

While no Lebanese want another round of civil war, if it did happen, it would be everyone against the Hizbollah led Shia. The result would be up to half the Shia population exiled in Syria, and Shia power in Lebanon broken for a long, long time. The Shia sect (Alawites) that runs Syria wouldn't mind a few hundred thousand Shia refugees in their midst, as Shia are only about ten percent of Syria's population. The Sunni Arabs who are the majority of Syrians might mind. Iran would come through with lots of money to make it all better, and keep the Shia in charge of Syria.

Israeli troops advancing into southern Lebanon are finding a lot of late model Russian weapons. Especially abundant are recently manufactured Russian anti-tank missiles. Three post-Cold War Russian missile systems have been found in large numbers. These include the 9M111 Fagot, which has a 25 pound missile fired from a 24 pound launch unit for up to 2,000 meters. Then there is the 9M133 Kornet, a replacement for the 9M111. This is laser guided missile with a range of 5,000 meters. The launcher has a thermal sight for use at night or in fog. The missile's warhead can penetrate 1200 mm of armor, which means that the front and side armor of the Israeli Merkava tank are vulnerable. The missile weighs 18 pounds and the launcher 42 pounds. Then there is the 9M131 Metis 2, which is a 30 pound missile, with a 1,500 meter range. It is fired from a 35 pound control unit, that has a thermal sight. Missiles and launch units have been found in bombed out buildings. The 9M131 can be fired from inside buildings. The missiles are used to take long range shots at Israeli infantry, as Hizbollah knows that, up close, their gunmen tend to lose quickly, and with heavy casualties, to the better trained Israelis. Russia has been selling these new missile systems to Syria and Iran, and this is the first real combat test of these systems. A few Israeli tanks have been hit, but most of the missiles have been fired at Israeli infantry, causing over a hundred casualties. Israel won't release details of these operations until after the war is over, but has admitted that most of their casualties in southern Lebanon have come from these Russian missiles.

Israel is moving sufficient troops, to the Lebanese border, to clear an area about 20 kilometers north of the border. This would severely limit the ability of Hizbollah to fire 122mm rockets into Israel. The Israelis would systematically clear civilians and Hizbollah fighters out of the area. Hizbollah has already lost hundreds of millions of dollars in assets (buildings, vehicles and equipment). The Israelis are holding off on the "20 Kilometer Zone" operation to see if the UN can work out a ceasefire deal. That would have to include a force of "trustworthy" (Western) peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon. There would have to be peacekeepers who could, like the Israelis, fight Hizbollah, and not be intimidated, or bribed by Hizbollah, as has been the case with the current UN peacekeeper force. Hizbollah refuses to accept this more robust force, and Israel will accept nothing less.

Although Israel has lost about fifty soldiers killed so far, this is a much lower loss rate than in previous wars. Better technology, weapons and medical care have all combined to reduce the casualty rate."

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20060810.aspx


posted by konane  # 1:42 PM 0 comments

Thursday, August 10, 2006

 

Aug 22 "Iran's Day of Terror?

"Iran's Day of Terror?
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 27, 2006

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?

 

Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”

 

The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets. The only thing the Qur’an has to say about it is this: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things)” (17:1). There is no identification of the “farthest Mosque” with any mosque in Jerusalem in this, but the Hadith is very clear on the identification of its location with Jerusalem.

 

The traditions say that Muhammad and the Buraq, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and from there to heaven itself, where Muhammad encountered various prophets. In the sixth heaven was Moses, occasioning a dig at the Jews. “When I left him,” Muhammad says, “he wept. Someone asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ Moses said, ‘I weep because after me there has been sent (Muhammad as a Prophet) a young man, whose followers will enter Paradise in greater numbers than my followers.’”

 

Evidently, however, Muhammad’s stories of his journey were not altogether convincing: even some of the Muslims abandoned their faith and challenged Muhammad’s most faithful follower, Abu Bakr, to do the same. Abu Bakr was contemptuous: “If he says so then it is true. And what is so surprising in that? He tells me that communications from God from heaven to earth come to him in an hour of a day or night and I believe him, and that is more extraordinary than that at which you boggle!” The world has continued to witness such unshakeable devotion from Muslims to this day.

 

Did Muhammad really go anywhere? According to his favorite wife, Aisha, he did not: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” Nevertheless, the Night Journey has become firmly embedded in the Islamic consciousness, such that Muslims today celebrate it as one of the central events of Muhammad’s life. And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”

 

Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.

 

“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” – that is, Israel – “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”

 

Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late? "

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=23533
posted by konane  # 9:39 AM 2 comments

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

 

Photos of missing Egyptian students.

Photos of missing Egyptian students.  3 captured.
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/site/modules/news/article.php?storyid=492

posted by konane  # 10:28 PM 4 comments

Wednesday, August 9, 2006

 

"Most Billionaires in China are Children of CCP Officials

"Most Billionaires in China are Children of CCP Officials
Zheng Ming Magazine Aug 09, 2006

<excerpt>


"Combined efforts from official Chinese research institutes revealed in an investigation report that primary posts in the fields of finance, foreign trade, land speculation, major projects and negotiable securities are occupied by the children of high-ranking officials. Among China's billionaires, 85 to 90 percent are children of high-ranking officials.".....

........."Source of Billionaire's Wealth Is Family Power
The source of assets for these billionaires is mainly the power of their family background. They make their money through both legal and illegal means. Methods used by these billionaires include, but are not limited to, importing foreign capital to get return commission, exporting national resources and merchandise for profit, land speculation, obtaining large project contracts by force and even smuggling and tax evasion. "......

......."Editor's Note: China's Special Class of Billionaires
The investigative report results released by the CCP's official research departments perfectly illustrates Deng Xiaoping's policy of "allowing a handful of people to get rich first." It appears that the party "without selfish motives" let its own family get rich first.

Every country has billionaires. However, billionaires in democratic countries depend on their ability, wisdom and painstaking efforts to keep their enterprises going. The billionaires in China, however, depend on their parents' ascendance, so it is not surprising that 90 percent of the current billionaires in China are children of high-ranking officials!

(Reprinted from Zheng Ming Magazine) "

http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/6-8-9/44778.html


posted by konane  # 7:17 PM 2 comments

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

 

(Eleven) Egyptian Students Vanish In NY

"EGYPTIAN STUDENTS VANISH IN BIG APPLE
Source New York Post 
"August 8, 2006 -- Eleven Egyptian students who were supposed to travel to a Montana university after flying to JFK airport late last month disappeared in New York, spurring federal authorities to issue a nationwide alert, officials said yesterday.
The students - who were traveling with six classmates from Mansoura University in Egypt - had their student visas revoked for failing to show up at Montana State University in Bozeman, the officials said.
The other six students made it to the college.
"The FBI and ICE [Immigration and Custom Enforcement] would like to locate these 11 students in order to speak with them," said FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko after the "be-on-the-lookout" alert was issued to all police in the United States.
Kolko said there is no reason to believe the missing students, all men around 20 years old, represent a threat.
"At this point, all they have done is not show up for a scheduled academic program, and their visas have been revoked," Kolko said.
"We do not know of any association with any terrorist or criminal groups. There is no threat associated with these men. We have simply asked law enforcement's assistance in locating them so that the FBI and ICE may interview them."
Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the situation "has to be taken very seriously."
"Having a number of students from an Arab country arriving on student visas and disappearing is cause for concern," he said.
Montana State University Provost David Dooley said 17 Mansoura University students signed up for a 32-day cultural-exchange program to intensively study English, learn about Montana history and go on several field trips.
They arrived at JFK on a flight from Egypt on July 29, but only one managed to clear immigration in time to make a connecting flight, Dooley said.
By July 31, five others had arrived in Bozeman, but the rest were unaccounted for.
Dooley said the ones who showed up "were not certain about the status of their fellow students and why they haven't made it."
MSU alerted federal Homeland Security and Mansoura officials and notified the students via e-mail they had 24 hours to show up in Bozeman. None of them did, Dooley said.
He added, "We're very disappointed by this. It would be regrettable if the misadventures or irresponsibility of a number of students damaged these kinds of programs."

Officials at the Egyptian Consulate in New York and the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C., said they were unfamiliar with the situation. "
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/egyptian_students_vanish_in_big_apple_regionalnews_dan_mangan.htm

posted by konane  # 10:31 AM 4 comments

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

 

More SuperSlab news

Hutchison Whampoa is closely linked with, or an arm of the People's Liberation Army ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Liberation_Army ) which is the communist party in China. 

After Jimmayh Carter gave Panama the Canal back to Panama, they sold it to Hutchison Whampoa.  Yes it was under treaty to return to Panama but the US built it and had the right to remove all they had put in place there before leaving.  IF Carter had any guts he should have told them so and bet the US would still be in charge of the Panama Canal instead of China. 

Just another flaketard decision by a failed SOCIALIST president who never met a thug-dictator-terrorist he wasn't in love with, nor never missed an opportunity to denigrate the US in every way he could.

BTW, I don't care how many union jobs this treaty abolishes .... it's US sovereignty, US immigration laws and the invasion by illegals is at the heart of my postings about it. 

This treaty needs to be put before congress to decide whether it's legal or not, and they need to iron out the kinks in it to protect us.


"Shipping-corridor deal cuts heart out of heartland
By Phyllis Schlafly
Source Townhall.com

"Grass-roots Americans of all parties and economic classes rose up out of their political apathy a few months ago and forced President George W. Bush to reverse his administration's decision to allow a Middle East government to own America's major ports. But the push for foreign ownership continues: the next port scheduled to be taken over is Kansas City, Mo.

Even though public schools stopped teaching geography a couple of decades ago, most Americans (especially residents of the Show Me State) are surprised to learn that Kansas City (where the only waves are "amber waves of grain") is a port. We are also surprised, and shocked, to discover that Mexico will be running its own inspection facility there.

The plan, shrouded in secrecy, has been in the works for at least three years, but it is now coming to light because of the diligent use of Missouri's Sunshine law by concerned citizens. Joyce Mucci and Francis Semler forced the release of the e-mails from Kansas City to Mexico, including one admitting that "The space (in Kansas City) would need to be designated as Mexican sovereign territory."

SmartPort representatives are now running away from this written admission, blaming "the problems and pressure the media attention has created." However, the stubborn sovereignty issue won't go away; the plan does involve setting up Mexican customs officials in downtown Kansas City.

The mechanism for this deal is a "nonprofit" business economic development corporation called Kansas City SmartPort Inc., whose president is Chris J.F. Gutierrez. The deal calls for Kansas City to lease the valuable property at 1447 Liberty St.

As laid out on SmartPort's Web site, the plan is to enable products made in China to travel in sealed "containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico," through "a ships-to-rail terminal at the port of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico," then up "the evolving trade corridor" to Kansas City, Mo., where they would have their first inspection.

A Kansas City SmartPort brochure explains further: "Kansas City offers the opportunity for sealed cargo containers to travel to Mexican port cities with virtually no border delays."

A key purpose of the project is to take jobs away from U.S. longshoremen in Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., who earn $140,000 a year, and replace them with Mexican laborers at $10,000 a year. U.S. truck drivers and railroad workers will likewise be replaced by Mexicans.

The port of Lazaro Cardenas, on the west coast of southern Mexico, is controlled by Hutchison Whampoa, the same giant Hong Kong shipping firm that owns the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal. Chinese-made goods will be carried by Kansas City Southern Railway de Mexico directly to Kansas City, where freight will be distributed east and west and on to Canada.

Kansas City Southern was originally a belt railway around Kansas City but, after buying various Mexican rail companies and tracks, KCS controls a 2,600-mile artery from Lazaro Cardenas to Kansas City. KCS President Michael Haverty was one of five U.S. businessmen who met with President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at their March summit in Cancun, Mexico.

Mexico was at first expected to pay for the big, expensive machines to conduct high-tech gamma-ray screening for drive-through inspections of containers, but Mexico declined the honor. SmartPort has applied for a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (i.e., to get the U.S. taxpayers to pay for the machines).

The Kansas City City Council has already earmarked $2.5 million in loans and $600,000 in direct aid to SmartPort, which would build and own the facility and then sublet it to the Mexican government. The cost could go as high as $6 million because Kansas City has an existing lease that runs through 2045 on the same property with the 107-year-old American Royal, which uses that land for its annual livestock/rodeo/barbecue event.

The last piece in finalizing this project is getting the U.S. State Department to approve the Mexican operation on U.S. soil by signing off on what is called the C-175 document. It has already been approved by U.S. Customs.

Meanwhile, NASCO (North America's SuperCorridor Coalition Inc.), another nonprofit business organization, has taken on the mission of building an "international, integrated and secure, multimodal transportation system" from Lazaro Cardenas through Kansas City and up to Winnipeg, Canada. This will allow Mexican trucks to haul goods along a 12-lane superhighway through the heartland of the United States." 

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2006/08/08/shipping-corridor_deal_cuts_heart_out_of_heartland
posted by konane  # 8:48 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

 

"Reuters' Pro-Terrorist Tilt: More than Dishonest Photos

Came in email this morning.

�
"Reuters' Pro-Terrorist Tilt: More than
Dishonest Photos
Source Cyberalert MediaResearch.org

� � " It's not just the doctored photos. Apart from the most recent travesty of journalistic ethics, it's worth recalling how Reuters has also tilted its words in favor of those who promote terror and misery around the world.

� � For example, Iraqis compelled to vote for Saddam Hussein back in 2002 were "defiant" and in a "festive mood," while Saddam's capture by U.S. forces a year later was marked by "resentment...of life under U.S. occupation."

� � For Reuters' editors, the first anniversary of 9/11 was a reminder that "human rights around the world" have been a "casualty" of the war on terror, while the second anniversary was a time to point out how "sympathy [for America] soured" as the U.S. actually fought back against the forces of darkness.

� � [This item, by Rich Noyes, was posted late Monday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]

� � A few of the more memorable quotes from the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables archive:

� � # "Joy at the capture of Saddam Hussein gave way to resentment toward Washington Monday as Iraqis confronted afresh the bloodshed, shortages and soaring prices of life under U.S. occupation." -- Lead sentence of Reuters correspondent Joseph Logan's December 15, 2003 dispatch, "Saddam Arrest Cheer Fades Into Iraqi Ire at U.S."

� � For more, check the December 16, 2003 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

� � # "The suicide hijack attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 produced a remarkable outpouring of sympathy for America, but sympathy soured as Bush declared a vague 'war on terror' that he took to Afghanistan and then, far more controversially, to Iraq." -- Reuters' caption on a September 2, 2003 photo composite of anti-war demonstrators.

� � For more, see the September 5, 2003 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

� � # "One side prides itself on discipline and travels in well-defined military columns; the other uses guerrilla tactics -- sniping at the enemy, harassing them with 'irregulars' and disregarding certain generally accepted rules of war. It may sound like the current war in Iraq, but it's also a description of the conflict between British troops and colonial forces who fought in the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1783. As U.S. and British authorities accuse Iraq of not fighting fairly, some historians have noted wryly that British officers made the same complaints about American colonists in the late 18th century." -- From an April 8, 2003 Reuters dispatch by Greg Frost.

� � For more, go to the April 9, 2003 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

� � # "Defiant Iraqis lined up to show their support for Saddam Hussein Tuesday as Western powers were deadlocked over how to deal with the veteran leader they say threatens world security....Iraqis were in a festive mood as they turned out to vote in a presidential referendum Saddam is sure to win." -- Reuters reporter Nadim Ladki in an October 15, 2002 dispatch from Baghdad.

� � # "Recovery and debris removal work continues at the site of the World Trade Center known as 'ground zero' in New York, March 25, 2002. Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the U.S. 'war on terror' since September 11." -- Reuters News Service caption for a photo of the destroyed World Trade Center site which was distributed with a story by Richard Waddington headlined, "Rights the first victim of 'war on terror,'" September 3, 2002.

� � For more, check the September 5, 2002 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

� � Oh, and let's not forget:
� � "We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Reuters upholds the principle that we do not use the word terrorist....To be frank, it adds little to call the attack on the World Trade Center a terrorist attack." -- Steven Jukes, global head of news for Reuters News Service, in an internal memo cited by the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz in a September 24, 2001 article.

� � See the September 25, 2001 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org

http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2006/cyb20060808.asp#2

posted by konane  # 8:06 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 7, 2006

 

Reuters staged photos (several pics)

From Powerline a discussion about staged, not doctored photos by Reuters.


"A Bridge Too Weird

 

"The story of the day is Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj. As I wrote earlier today, I think the most important issue here is not the faking of photographs, but the staging of photographs. In that connection, reader Cathy Brooks has done a tremendous job of analyzing Hajj's photos. I want to focus here on one set: the ones relating to the bombing of Qasmiya Bridge, near Tyre. Everything in the post that follows is attributable to Cathy's efforts; any errors of inference are mine. A quick preliminary note: Reuters has pointed out that the dates and times that appear with photographs when they are published do not represent the time at which the picture was taken, and do not necessarily reflect the order in which the photos were taken. Nevertheless, I have included the date and time listed for each photo for whatever it is worth. One more preliminary note: For speed, I am going to put the photos up without links, and will add the links later when I have time." .................................

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014929.php


posted by konane  # 9:42 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 7, 2006

 

"Baiters Teach Scammers a Lesson (419 Nigerian)

photos of scammers doing stupid things  http://blog.wired.com/419baiters/ 


"Baiters Teach Scammers a Lesson

By Robert Andrews

Sourece Wired News
<excerpt>

........"But Metimbers and crew turn the tables on scammers one by one, boomeranging the tricksters' own tactics to entice them into performing outlandish tasks in desperate pursuit of cash -- then trumpeting evidence of the con artists' naïveté for the online world's amusement.

A 43-year-old, self-employed computer engineer from Manchester, England, Metimbers has most recently spun counter-yarns that have compelled 419ers to make elaborate wood carvings, pose for comical photos and fly from London to Scotland. In one episode, which concluded in March after a five-month exchange, he succeeded in having a Nigerian fraudster tattoo "Baited by Shiver" on his body in order to claim a fictional $46,000 prize.

"Another time, the scammer thought he was going to get $18,000 out of me, but I actually got the guy to send me $80," said Metimbers, who started the 419 Eater community site almost three years ago after receiving a wave of spam in his inbox.

"I've got between five and 10 on the go at any one time," Metimbers said. "The worst thing that could possibly happen to these guys is they get their photo slapped on a website. I feel like a cybervigilante, doing my bit for the public."

Metimbers, whose real forename is Mike and who spends up to seven hours a day scambaiting, is team captain in a growing internet blood sport, in which photographic evidence of competing baiters' successes constitute trophies.

419 Eater alone numbers more than 20,000 participants around the world. Other initiatives have also surfaced in the anti-scam resistance movement, including Artists Against 419, which kills criminals' online accounts with a deluge of traffic. Baiters delight in convincing correspondents to be photographed with embarrassing and lewd Western banners -- like Metimbers, they operate using aliases to protect themselves against the death threats issued by disgruntled scammers upon realizing they have been had.

Other humor-heavy vigilantes include Bait A Mugu, theScamBaiter.com, ScamBaits, Scamorama and The Billy Goat Curse.

"Shiver is exceedingly creative in getting scammers to allow their greed to override their judgment," said one disciple nicknamed mrsbean, a 29-year-old female IT worker from Kentucky who claims to have wasted months of organized scammers' time.

"It is equal parts theater, chess game, psychological study, crime prevention, education and vigilante justice; it's a battle of the wits," said mrsbean. "Internet scams are unique in that they offer you an opportunity to personally combat them without compromising your own safety; the same is just not true of most crime -- one wouldn't take on the drug dealers in a local neighborhood, for instance.".....

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,71387-0.html?tw=wn_index_12

posted by konane  # 1:33 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 7, 2006

 

"Rehabbing Islamic Extremists

"Rehabbing Islamic Extremists
By Paul Sperry
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 7, 2006


"Could you imagine the New York Times running a saintly profile of a skinhead who said he hoped the U.S. would be a Nazi country ruled by the Fourth Reich? Of course not. It would never happen. Nor should it.

So why did the paper recently run a glowing feature of a Muslim cleric who said he hopes the U.S. would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law? The Times even ran it -- in the middle of a war on Islamic terror -- on its front page.

"Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country," imam Zaid Shakir admitted in the last paragraph of a long story that spent the preceding 2,862 words trying to convince us how progressive and moderate Shakir is.

Talk about burying the lead. If this is the new voice of moderate Muslims in America, God help us (and I don't mean Allah).

Ironically, the story was titled, "American Muslim Clerics Seek a Modern Middle Ground." Modern? Islamic law is based on 1,400-year-old Bedouin justice that metes out beheadings, amputations and stonings. It also sanctions polygamy, denies women basic rights and merges mosque and state.

The Times also profiled Shakir's California partner, Sheik Hamza Yusuf, also described as "hip" and popular with Americanized Muslim students and converts. The pair tours college campuses speaking to packed auditoriums.

These aren't your father's imams, the Times says. They are "a new generation of imams who can reconcile Islam and American culture" -- even as at least one of them hopes for the Islamization of American culture.

"They say that Islam must be rescued from extremists," the story said. "The two are challenging the influence of Islam's more reactionary sects, like Wahhabism and Salafism, which has been spread to American mosques and schools by clerics trained in Saudi Arabia."

Hmm. A check of Yusuf's bio reveals he himself studied Islam in Medina, Saudi Arabia, a fact not mentioned in the piece.

That's not all that was left out.

Yusuf just two days before 9-11 made an ominous prediction in a California speech that triggered an FBI investigation, according to the Washington Post.

"This country is facing a terrible fate" for occupying Muslim lands, Yusuf warned. "The reason for that is that this country stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did.

"And lest people forget that Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands, Europe's countries were devastated, they were completely destroyed," he added. "Their young people were killed."

FBI agents paid the imam a visit to question him about the incendiary remarks, according to the Post's account. When they knocked on his door, his wife answered and told them he wasn't home. "He's with the president" in Washington, she said.

The agents thought she was joking, but she wasn't. Yusuf was one of many Muslim leaders invited by the White House to meet and pray with President Bush in the weeks after 9-11. (He's the cleric who convinced Bush to ditch "Infinite Justice" as the name for the Afghan war since it might offend
Muslims.)

The rehabilitation of Yusuf's image was already in progress, thanks to his Muslim friends in the administration such as Suhail Khan. Now the Times is taking it to the next level, no doubt pleased with Yusuf's political activism, which has included taking vanloads of Arabs to antiwar protests outside the Republican National Convention. The paper is willing to apologize for even Yusuf's past anti-Semitic remarks. In 1995, for example, he called Judaism "a most racist religion."

"Both Mr. Shakir and Mr. Yusuf have a history of anti-American rhetoric," the Times allowed, "but with age, they have tempered their views."

The Times wants us to believe that these leopards have matured and lost their radical spots. But are they really gone? Or did they temporarily disappear as 9-11 brought more scrutiny?

Shakir, who still hopes to replace the U.S. Constitution with the Quran, once praised the effectiveness of "armed struggle" such as the one that brought the Taliban to power. A copy of the pamphlet he wrote was found in the apartment of a suspect in the first World Trade Center bombing.

Never mind all that, the Times says. The imams are now just a couple of tweedy, goatee'd moderates "encouraging tolerance." Uh-huh, that's certainly what they'd have us believe anyway.
 "
  http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23695

posted by konane  # 9:51 AM 2 comments

Sunday, August 6, 2006

 

Two More Different Fake Reuters Photos

Can you say media meltdown????????  I'll bet damage control talking heads at Reuters look like fake false teeth wound tight as they'll go.  Green laugh  Green laugh  Green laugh

 

These are different photos of totally different subjects.


"Another Fake Reuters Photo from Lebanon


Extreme Makeover - Beirut Edition

posted by konane  # 11:13 PM 0 comments

Sunday, August 6, 2006

 

"Reuters admits altering Beirut photo

via DrudgeReport.com  Thank bloggers for sorting this one out!!!  Big Grin  Now take note as to how much more BS they've been feeding us as truth.

"Reuters admits altering Beirut photo

 

Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out 'blatant evidence of manipulation'
Yaakov Lappin

 

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

 

 

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors."

 

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3286966,00.html


posted by konane  # 9:51 AM 2 comments

Saturday, August 5, 2006

 

"Qana - the director's cut

Another link via Powerline.  More pics.


"Qana - the director's cut


I have called this post, "the director's cut", as that is what it is. The narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah's media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore." .............

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/qana-directors-cut.html
posted by konane  # 11:41 PM 0 comments

Saturday, August 5, 2006

 

"Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?

Picked up the link from Powerline.


"Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut&only

 


posted by konane  # 10:44 PM 2 comments

Saturday, August 5, 2006

 

Elitists behind Illegals invasion

Past articles I've posted have made reference to CFR, or Council on Foreign Relations which is one of the elitist groups behind the North American Union which incorporates the US, Canada and Mexico under one common border and which subverts US law. 

Under that plan amnesty for invaders is a given.

Council on Foreign Relations - Wilkipedia shows a list of members  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations

Links to past articles posted is the first section for easy reference.  Second article outlines the ORIGIN of the intellectual elitist organizations shoving this implementation through, the Bilderbergers...... mammoth global money whose only goal is to keep themselves rich and isolated from the rest of the world.


https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/6/cfrs-plan-to-integrate-the-us-mexico-and.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/7/the-new-world-disorder.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/6/bush-sneaking-north-american-super-state-wit.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/6/north-american-union-already-starting-to-rep.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/5/president-quietly-creating-nafta-plus.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/5/north-american-union-to-replace-usa.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/5/laws-theyre-violating.htm
https://blogs.lotterypost.com/konane/2006/4/integrate-the-us-mexico-and-canada.htm

"The Bilderberg Group

Source NexusMagazine.com
"The conspiracy theory writers have repeatedly linked one powerful global elite, the Bilderberg Group, with the ultimate take-over of the world. Members of the Bilderberg together with their 'sister' organisations-the Trilateral Commission (known also as the "Child of Bilderberg")(1) and the Council on Foreign Relations(2)-are charged with the post-war take-over of the democratic process. The measures implemented by this group so far prove the control of the world economy through indirect political means.

The constitution of several democratic monarchies of the Western Europe bans members of their royal families from playing an active role in the political process. However, the Bilderberg meetings provide this exact forum and platform for them.
"This unprecedented period of European cooperation is more than a product of simple nation-state diplomacy. One of the key institutions that has fostered unity and cooperation with the Atlantic Community beyond the old concepts has been the Bilderberg Group."(3)
"I tell you frankly that I am deeply alarmed today over the possibility that a right-wing reaction may draw some sections of capital so far away from our traditions as to imperil the entire structure of American life as we know it."(4)

These comments by Pasymowski and Gilbert(3) two decades ago may seem out of phase with the current events in former Yugoslavia, but, in terms of the continued stability of the "European State", they have proven to be largely accurate. Warfare has been removed from the intra-European systems as a means of controlling and directing nationalistic goals and ideas. Even in the case of former Yugoslavia, one observes that the current state of war has resulted from Tito's and the Soviet Union's demise. Consequently, the lid has been lifted on rivals and racial memories which had been artificially kept in place for previous decades. The several proto-states which make up the former Yugoslavia were not part of the economic and social development programs which evolved in Western Europe. As we would see, the way in which the rest of Europe evolved and developed was very different, and for very particular reasons.

Whether co-incidence or not, it is equally ironic that the current Chairman of the Bilderberg, Lord Carrington, was the first UN-appointed representative to bring peace to the war-torn Yugoslavia.

ORIGINS

The single most important personality connected with the birth and creation of the Bilderberg Group is Joseph H. Retinger (also known as L'Eminence-His Grey Eminence). Retinger had a colourful, lifelong career that raised him to the top of the world power élites. At his funeral in 1960, Sir Edward Bedington-Behrens said:
"I remember Retinger in the United States picking up the telephone and immediately making an appointment with the President, and in Europe he had complete entrée in every political circle as a kind of right acquired through trust, devotion and loyalty he inspired."

Retinger, as a Catholic, was viewed by many as an agent of the Vatican, acting in liaison between the Pope and the Father-General of the Jesuit order.

One of Retinger's renowned achievements in European politics was the founding of the European Movement, leading to the establishment of the Council of Europe on 5th May 1949. With its headquarters in Strasbourg, the Council Executive Committee provided Retinger his first major platform for his expansive ideology. From his earlier days at the Sorbonne, Retinger believed in greater European unity, both in military and economic terms. It was also at the same time when his interest in the guidance of the Jesuit order manifested itself. He spent a great deal of his time fulfilling these ambitions. He suggested to Premier Georges Clemenceau a plan to unite Eastern Europe-involving the merging of Austria, Hungary and Poland as a tripartite monarchy under the guidance of the Jesuit order. Clemenceau, doubtful of the Vatican-inspired plan, rejected Retinger's proposal outright. This plan labelled Retinger, thereafter, as a Vatican agent.

Retinger's activities were not limited to uniting Europe. Through his several trips to Mexico he played a key role in the creation of a trade union movement in the 1920s. Due to his unprecedented success, and by gaining the Mexican Government's trust, Retinger convinced them to nationalise the US oil interest in Mexico. In the process, Retinger conducted the secret negotiations with Washington for the Mexican Government.

Retinger also had an active war career. He was the political aide to General Sikorski, and served for the London-based Polish Government-in-exile. In addition, at the age of 58, he parachuted into German-occupied territory outside Warsaw for some sabotage missions.

Due to his high-profile career, in the 1950s he was able to create contacts with numerous high-ranking military officials and political leaders. His main aim was to unite the world in peace. His peace dividend was to be under the control of supernational, powerful organisations. He believed that such organisations would be immune from short-term ideological conflicts erupting between governments. To Retinger, it was insignificant what dominated the economic ideology of a country. He believed these differences could be brought into line by powerful multinational organisations dictating and applying powerful economic and military policies, thereby creating a union and a bond between the nations.

Retinger's personal 'left-wing' views from his heady days convinced him that many leaders of newly born socialist and communist nations would be prepared to talk to him. Additionally, his Church background gave him an arena for dialogue with people from the middle-ground connections in international relations.

Nevertheless, Retinger knew that control of the world affairs cannot be achieved without US participation. In pursuit of this ideology, he began a campaign for the creation of an Atlantic Community. This would make the development of Europe an important political aim for the American politicians, thereby preventing their retreat into political isolation.

Retinger, with this in mind, set out his carefully calculated move by involving one of his close and powerful friends, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. Prince Bernhard, at the time, was an important figure in the oil industry and held a major position in Royal Dutch Petroleum (Shell Oil), as well as Société Générale de Belgique-a powerful global corporation.

In 1952 Retinger approached Bernhard with a proposal for a secret conference to involve the NATO leaders in an open and frank discussion on international affairs behind closed doors. The meeting would allow each participant to speak his mind freely because no media representative would be permitted inside; nor would there be any news bulletin about the meeting or the topics discussed. Furthermore, if any leaks occurred, the journalists would be discouraged from writing about it.

Prince Bernhard fully supported Retinger's proposal for an international meeting. Consequently, they formed a committee to organise a plan. In 1952, Bernhard approached the Truman administration and briefed them about the meeting. Despite a positive reception, it was not until the Eisenhower administration when the first American counterpart group was formed. The two key role-players in the US group were General Walter Bedell Smith (Director of the CIA) and C. D. Jackson. Both (European-American) groups working interactively set out to fulfil Retinger's initial plan. From the outset, the American group was heavily influenced by the Rockefeller family, the owners of Standard Oil-competitors of Bernhard's Royal Dutch Petroleum. From then on, the Bilderberg business reflected the concerns of the oil industry in its meetings.

According to Bilderberg's draft document of 1989:
"Bilderberg takes its name from the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland, where the first meeting took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed by many leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and North America were not working together as closely as they should on matters of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post-war period."(5)

Retinger's main aim in creating Bilderberg had other more important, inherent aspects than an informal gathering of a group of the world's élite. It has been suggested that Bilderberg meetings ultimately would have implemented group dynamics techniques in the shape of a low- key international thinking group with the purpose of sensitising the less enlightened of its membership towards the new transitional diplomacy of the Cold War.

The first meeting witnessed the gathering of ideologies, poles apart. The issue of McCarthyism was reaching its peak in the United States. European participants, exasperated with the McCarthy propaganda, saw in their American counterparts a clear political shift towards an ultra-right-wing fascist state. Memories of World War II still fresh in their minds, the Europeans found the concept rather repulsive.

C. D. Jackson (a member of the CFR), in an attempt to regain the international delegates' confidence, stated:
"Whether McCarthy dies by an assassin's bullet or is eliminated in the normal American way of getting rid of boils on body politics, I prophesy that by the time we hold our next meeting he will be gone from the American scene."(6)

Nevertheless, McCarthyism proved to be a source of embarrassment for the US delegate.

OTHER GROUPS

The concept of Bilderberg was not new. Although similar groups were already in existence at the time, none attracted and provoked global myths the way Bilderberg has.

Groups such as Bohemian Grove, established in 1872 by San Franciscans, played an equally significant role in shaping post-war politics in the US.
"It was at the Grove, it is said, that the Manhattan Project was set up and that Eisenhower was selected as the Republicans' candidate for 1952."(7)

The Ditchley Park Foundation was established in 1953 in Britain with the same aim.(8)

Two years earlier, in 1952, Britain's Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had suggested the idea of a NATO command-post exercise (a paper drill; no movement of forces) to train army divisional commanders. General Eisenhower, who was then NATO's European Commander, accepted it. As a result, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe Exercise-SHAPEX-was created. Ever since, an annual meeting has been held in SHAPE headquarters near Mons, Belgium, and the subject has been broadened to incorporate a wide array of topics.

The historical review of these groups reflects a sudden flourishing trend, and the realisation by the world's leaders of the need for creation of, at times, such overt concepts. The idea of establishing such élite groups did not die with the birth of Bilderberg.

In 1957, the first of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs took place.9 Pandit Nehru offered to host the first meeting. The founder members were personalities such as Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein. Scientists from the United States and Soviet Union were regular participants in this East-West gathering of élites. Britain is known for its active participation and role in this group.
"The best feature of Pugwash is that it brings together people from East, West and non-aligned countries."(9)

Pugwash proved particularly valuable at the time when the relation between East and West was at a stalemate. Many significant topics were discussed in this forum. Ways of monitoring arms control agreements, nuclear disarmament, and reduction of East-West tensions were always on the top of the agenda. In the 1970s Pugwash embraced a range of issues including biological, chemical and conventional arms control, environment and development problems as well as conflicts around the world.

One of the latest groups is the Williamsburg, better known as the Asian Window. Its first meeting was financed by the late John D. Rockefeller in 1971, and continues to date. It brings together the Asian leaders and the Americans. Williamsburg has been particularly effective for discussing Vietnam, or the Indonesian corruption, or supposedly non-existent Japanese exchange controls. Different experiences of trade with China and Russia, or how Singapore has a lower infant mortality than America, have been some of the topics in the Williamsburg forum.

Nonetheless, none of these groups-including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilaterals-commands the influence the Bilderberg has obtained in shaping and dictating global policies.

CHAIRMAN

"The first [Bilderberg] meeting was convened under the chairmanship of H. R. H. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, who served as chairman for twenty-two years. He was succeeded by Lord Home of the Hirsel, former Prime Minister for the United Kingdom, who chaired the meetings for four years. At the 1980 meeting, Lord Home turned over the chairmanship to Walter Scheel, former President of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1985, Mr Scheel resigned, and was succeeded by Lord Roll of Ipsden, President of S. G. Warburg Group plc. At 1989 meeting, Lord Roll turned over the chairmanship to Lord Carrington,"(10) who still chairs the meetings.

CHARACTER OF BILDERBERG MEETINGS

"What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum is (1) the broad cross-section of leading citizens, in and out of government, that are assembled for nearly three days of informal discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy; (2) the strong feeling among participants that, in view of the differing attitudes and experiences of the Western nations, there is a clear need to develop an understanding in which these concerns can be accommodated; and (3) the privacy of these meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow leading citizens to speak their minds openly and freely.

"In short, Bilderberg is a recognised, flexible and informal international leadership forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced."(11)

In further recognition of this aspect, Paddy Ashdown, the Leader of the Liberal Party and a participant in the 1989 Bilderberg meeting, wrote to me:

"In view of the recent events right across Europe, this has turned out to have been an exceptionally useful opportunity to meet and discuss with many of the most expert people in the world on international relations. I found it a very stimulating and informative gathering."(12)

But others, such as Prince Charles, Lord Callaghan and Sir Edward Heath, were rather shy in their responses.(13)

PARTICIPANTS

There are usually 115 participants in each annual meeting. Eighty are from Western Europe and the remainder from North America. From this mixture, one-third are from government and politics, and the remaining two-thirds from industry, finance, education and communications. All the participants claim to attend the meeting in their private capacity and not as officials-though this claim, in the wake of the outcome of subsequent meetings, has proven to be highly questionable.

Participants are invited to the Bilderberg meeting by the Chairman, following his consultations and recommendations by the Steering Committee membership, the Advisory Group and the Honorary Secretaries-General. This approach ensures a full, informed and balanced discussion of the agenda items. The individuals are chosen based on their knowledge, standing and experience. The previous participants maintain that, at the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken and no policy statements are made.

FUNDING

The costs of the annual meetings are usually the responsibility of the Steering Committee members of the host country. But, the expenses of maintaining the Bilderberg meetings are covered entirely by private subscriptions. Although the meeting reports are published, nevertheless they are strictly for the participating members only. No reports are made available to the media.

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
Members' Steering Committee:
  • Chairman: Peter, Lord Carrington-Chairman of the Board, Christie's International plc; Former Secretary-General NATO.
  • Secretary-General for Europe and Canada: Victor Halberstadt-Professor of Public Economics, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
  • Secretary General for USA: Theodore L. Elliot, Jr-Dean Emeritus, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy; Former US Ambassador.
  • Treasurer: Pieter Korteweg-President and Chief Executive Officer, Robeco Group.
  • Austria: Peter Jankowitsch-Member of Parliament, Former Foreign Minister.
  • Belgium: Etienne Davignon-Chairman, Société Générale de Belgique; Former Vice Chairman of the Commission of the European Communities.
  • Finland: Jaakko Iloniemi-Managing Director, Centre for Finnish Business and Policy Studies; Former Ambassador to the USA.
  • France: Marc Lardreit de Lacharrère-Chairman, Fimalac. Thierry de Montbrial-Director, French Institute of International Relations; Professor of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique.

  • Germany: Christoph Bertram- Diplomatic Correspondent, Die Zeit.
  • Hilmar Kopper-Spokesman of the Board of Managing Directors, Deutsche Bank AG.

  • Greece: Costa Carras-Director of companies.
  • Ireland: Peter D. Sutherland-Chairman, Allied Irish Bank plc; Former Member, Commission of the European Communities.
  • Italy: Mario Monti-Rector and Professor of Economics, Bocconi University, Milan.
  • Renato Ruggiero-Member of the Board, Fiat SpA; Former Minister of Foreign Trade.

  • Norway: Westye Hoegh, Ship Owner, Leif Hoegh & Co AS.
  • Portugal: Francisco Pinto Balsemao-Professor of Mass Communication, New University of Lisbon; Chairman, Sojornal sarl; Former Prime Minister.
  • Spain: Jamie Carvajal Urquijo-Chairman and General Manager, Iberfomento.
  • Sweden: Percy Barnevik-President and CEO, ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd.
  • Switzerland: David de Pury-Chairman, BBC Brown Boveri Ltd; Co-Chairman, ABB Asea Brown Boveri Group.
  • Turkey: Selahattin Beyazit-Director of companies.
  • United Kingdom: Andrew Knight-Executive Chairman, News International plc.
  • United States of America: Kenneth W. Dam-Max Pam Professor of American and Foreign Law, University of Chicago Law School; Former Deputy Secretary of State.
  • Vernon E. Jordan, Jr-Partner, Akin, Gump, Hauer & Field, Attorneys-at-Law; Former President, National Urban League.
  • Henry A. Kissinger-Former Secretary of State; Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
  • Charles McC. Mathias-Partner, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue; Former US Senator (Republican, Maryland).
  • Rozanne C. Whitehead-Former Deputy Secretary of State.
  • Lynn R. Williams-International President, United Steel- Workers of America.
  • Cassimir A. Yost-Executive Director, The Asia Foundation's Center for Asian-Pacific Affairs.
  • United States of America/International: James D. Wolfensohn-President, World Bank; President, James D. Wolfensohn, Inc.
Members of Advisory Group:
  • Canada: Anthony G. S. Griffin-Director of companies.
  • Germany: Otto Wolff von Amerongen-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Otto Wolff Industrieberatung und Beteiligungen GmbH.
  • International: Max Kohnstamm-Former Secretary-General, Action Committee for Europe; Former President, European University Institute.
  • Italy: Giovanni Agnelli-Chairman, Fiat SpA.
  • Netherlands: Ernst H. van der Beugel-Emeritus Professor of International Relations, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary-General of Bilderberg Meetings for Europe and Canada.
  • United Kingdom: Lord Roll of Ipsden-President, S. G. Warburg Group plc.
  • United States of America: George W. Ball-Former Under-Secretary of State.
  • William P. Bundy-Former Editor, Foreign Affairs.
  • David Rockefeller-Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank International Advisory Committee.
CONFERENCES, 1954-1992

29-31 May 1954: Oosterbeek, Netherlands.
18-20 March 1955: Barbizon, France.
23-25 September 1955: Garmisch-Partenkirchen, W. Germany.
11-13 May 1956: Fredensborg, Denmark.
15-17 February 1957: St Simons Island, Georgia, USA.
4-6 October 1957: Fiuggi, Italy.
13-15 September 1958: Buxton, England.
18-20 September 1959: Yesilköy, Turkey.
28-29 May 1960: Bürgenstock, Switzerland.
21-23 April 1961: St Castin, Canada.
18-20 May 1962: Saltsjöbaden, Sweden.
29-31 May 1963: Cannes, France.
20-22 March 1964: Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.
2-4 April 1965: Villa d'Este, Italy.
25-27 March 1966: Wiesbaden, W. Germany.
31 March 2 April 1967: Cambridge, England.
26-28 April 1968: Mont Tremblant, Canada.
9-11 May 1969: Marienlyst, Denmark.
17-19 April 1970: Bad Ragaz, Switzerland.
23-25 April 1971: Woodstock, Vermont, USA.
21-23 April 1972: Knokke, Belgium.
11-13 May 1973: Saltsjöbaden, Sweden.
19-21 April 1974: Megìve, France.
25-27 April 1975: Çesme, Turkey.
1976: No conference was held.
22-24 April 1977: Torquay, England.
21-23 April 1978: Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
27-29 April 1979: Baden, Austria.
18-20 April 1980: Aachen, W. Germany.
15-17 May 1981: Bürgenstock, Switzerland.
14-16 May 1982: Sandefjord, Norway.
13-15 May 1983: Montebello, Canada.
11-13 May 1984: Saltsjöbaden, Sweden.
10-12 May 1985: Rye Brook, New York USA.
25-27 April 1986: Gleneagles, Scotland.
24-26 April 1987: Villa d'Este, Italy.
3-5 June 1988: Telfs-Buchen, Austria.
12-14 May 1989: La Toja, Spain.
11-13 May 1990: Glen Cove, New York, USA.
6-9 June 1991: Baden-Baden, Germany.
21-24 May 1992: Evian-les-Bains, France.

Though the entire topics of the Bilderberg meetings since its establishment are known to me, listing these topics would occupy several pages, which is not within the scope of this writing. However, I should perhaps include herewith the topics of the first meeting (1954) and the 1992 meeting which, in themselves, provide an insight into the evolution of this group, the Bilderberg.

29-31 May 1954: Oosterbeek, Netherlands
A. The attitude towards communism and the Soviet Union.
B. The attitude towards dependent areas and people overseas.
C. The attitude towards economic policies and problems.
D. The attitude towards European integration and the European Defence Community.

21-24 May 1992: Evian-les-Bains, France
A. Prospects for the former Soviet republics.
B. What should be done for Eastern Europe?
C. Whither the United States?
D. The world economy.
E. Whither Europe?
F. Soviet Union: the view from Moscow.
G. The migration issue.
H. The evolving west/west relationship.


Footnotes:

1. The issue concerning the history and the activities of the Trilateral Commission is a separate one to be dealt with in another paper.
2. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) requires separate attention which I would discuss in another paper. However, I should add that the CFR does not accept non-US members.
3. Pasymowski, Eugene and Carl Gilbert, Bilderberg: The Cold War Internationale, 1971.
4. Charles E. Wilson, addressing the National Association of Manufacturers in 1946.
5. Extract from a Bilderberg document. This document was given to the author, prior to its official publication, by one of the members of the Bilderberg Group. Later on, an official format was also provided to the author by another member, which proved the authenticity of the record in point.
6. Hatch, Alden, H. R. H. Bernhard, Prince of the Netherlands, 1962.
7. "Our Good Conference Guide", The Economist, December 1987.
8. The issue concerning the Ditchley Foundation requires a separate paper. For many years I have been studying this Foundation and have had the opportunity of discussing its achievements, goals and missions with several of its members and invited participants.
9. Op. cit., 7.
10. Bilderberg Meetings, 1989, p. 1 (Bilderberg record).
11. Op. cit. 5, p. 1.
12. Letter from Paddy Ashdown, Leader of the Liberal Party, dated 3 January 1990, to the author.
13. Former Prime Minister Lord Callaghan's letter of 19 October 1989, to the author. Former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath's letter of 1 November 1989, to the author. Letter of 30 October 1989 from St James's Palace, to the author. Prince Charles participated in the 1986 Bilderberg annual meeting held in Scotland. "

http://nexusmagazine.com/articles/bilderbergers.html


posted by konane  # 9:51 AM 0 comments

Friday, August 4, 2006

 

"Going After Web Gambling a Challenge


"Going After Web Gambling a Challenge

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD
The Associated Press
Friday, August 4, 2006; 9:20 AM

ST. LOUIS -- When federal prosecutor Marty Woelfle went before a judge this week to lay out her case against an online gambling firm, she faced a daunting legal challenge from the company. No one bothered to show up.

There would seem to be good reason for BetOnSports PLC to send attorneys to Missouri. The firm is facing a 22-count indictment on fraud and racketeering charges filed in St. Louis. The chief executive is in jail, and the company faces a restraining order barring it from operating in the United States.


But with headquarters in Costa Rica and other offices in Antigua, BetOnSports was advised it didn't have to respond to charges filed in a U.S. court, Woelfle told U.S. District Judge Carol Jackson. ".................

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/04/AR2006080400134.html


posted by konane  # 12:29 PM 2 comments

Friday, August 4, 2006

 

"Muslims team up with Marxists for D.C. protest

Crumb trail has been vividly clear to me for years, radical Islam and Marxist against freedom/democracy.

Both radical Islam and Marxism (socialism/communism) blame the US for all that ails the world and only their dogmas can fix it.  Blame the US is being echoed from our own home grown US Democratic party.  Eek

Now they both crawl from under their rocks and join hands in the light of day. 

Time to wake up, smell the coffee.  They're whipping us into place with propaganda.



"Muslims team up with Marxists for D.C. protest
Massive 'emergency' rally on 'predicament' of Islamic people abroad and at home'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 4, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

 

Source WorldNetDaily.com

<excerpt>

A radical anti-war coalition is joining forces with a U.S. Islamic lobby organization to stage a demonstration in front of the White House to protest "the current predicament of Muslims abroad and at home."

A.N.S.W.E.R., a coalition led by socialist and communist activists, and Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation are co-sponsoring the "National Emergency March" Aug. 12 at Lafayette Park at 12 noon.

A third co-sponsor is the National Council of Arab Americans.

A number of leaders for A.N.S.W.E.R. – Act Now to Stop War and End Racism – were members of the Workers World Party and now belong to the Party for Socialism and Liberation , a Marxist-Leninist organization founded in 2004".....

........"In a WND interview, the group's executive director, Mahdi Bray, blamed the United States and President Bush for the war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Bray said that while there are "no clean hands" in the escalating violence, the United States has failed completely.

"We have the … capability of doing something," he said. "Our position is not defensible that we have not used our leverage to obtain a cease-fire."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51375


posted by konane  # 10:21 AM 0 comments

Friday, August 4, 2006

 

"Asian suicide bombers dispatched to attack Jewish interests


Asian suicide bombers dispatched to attack Jewish interests


www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-04 09:33:36

CANBERRA, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 Southeast Asian suicide bombers have been dispatched around the world with a mission to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel, one of the leading Australian newspapers quoted a radical Jakarta-based organization as saying Friday.

These countries include Britain, the United States and possibly Australia, said the daily The Australian.

The newspaper said Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM), a radical Jakarta-based organization, gave it details of the plot Thursday.

: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-08/04/content_4917629.htm


posted by konane  # 9:56 AM 0 comments

Friday, August 4, 2006

 

China beats to death 50,000 dogs ..rabies crackdown

A friend emailed me a heads up on this. 

Seems to me that a government as autocratic as the China has who provides everything for its people (cough, hack!!) would also supply free rabies vaccinations as part of public health policies.  Hey it's the correct thing to do since they control every aspect of everyone's lives. 

Only goes to show you that a government which siezes that much power can take away anything it so chooses at any time it decides. 

Glad I live in the USA and fervently pray we never have a Democratic Party socialist/communist government which takes from everyone according to their ability and gives to each according to what they need......  smacks of implanting a 666 microchip IMHO. 


 

China slaughters 50,000 dogs in brutal rabies crackdown
<excerpt>

SHANGHAI - China slaughtered 50,000 dogs in a government-ordered crackdown after three people died of rabies, sparking unusually pointed criticism in state media Tuesday and an outcry from animal rights activists.
Health experts said the brutal policy pointed to deep weaknesses in the health care infrastructure in China, where only 3 percent of dogs are vaccinated against rabies and more than 2,000 people die of the disease each year.".......

...."Dogs being walked were seized and beaten to death on the spot, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported. Killing teams entered villages at night and created noise to get dogs barking, then beat the animals to death, the reports said."..........

http://www.startribune.com/722/story/589306.html


posted by konane  # 9:31 AM 0 comments

Thursday, August 3, 2006

 

"It's Not Just About Land

Excerpts from the following article reiterate what this video link I posted yesterday says ..... they blame everyone for their problems rather than trying to address their failed system and correct those problems. 

However that's typical of anyone stuck in the past, wanting to turn back the hands of time to what was once glory days their own actions allowed to slip away.

Just remember Islamafascists are directly descended from Hitler's Nazis and now have expanded their targets to all who do not believe in their radical version of Islam.

If you haven't viewed the video I posted yesterday you've missed something really important.  Here's the link again, and you need a good stomach to view it. 


Video  "Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About
 1 hr 17 min 30 sec - Jul 18, 2006
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6162397493278181614

"It's Not Just About Land
By Victor Davis Hanson
Source Real Clear Politics

Despite the claims of terrorist organizations, Israel's current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from Lebanon and Gaza well after Israel had withdrawn from both places.".....


....."Why their hurt?

For about the last half-century, globalization has passed most of the recalcitrant Middle East by -- economically, socially and politically. The result is that there are now few inventions and little science emanating from the Islamic world -- but a great deal of poverty, tyranny and violence. And rather than make the necessary structural changes that might end cultural impediments to progress and modernity -- such as tribalism, patriarchy, gender apartheid, polygamy, autocracy, statism and fundamentalism -- too many Middle Easterners have preferred to embrace the reactionary past and the cult of victimization.

At one time or another, they have welcomed all the bankrupt ideologies that traditionally blame others for prior self-induced failure: fascism, communism, Baathism, Pan-Arabism and, most recently, Islamic fundamentalism.".....

 

...."Instead, there will be no peace in the general Middle East until Iranians and Arabs have true constitutional government, free institutions, open markets and the rule of law. Without these reforms, they will continue to fail, seeking easy refuge in the shreds of mythical ancestral honor -- and this pathetic neurosis of blaming nearby Israel for the loss of it."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/its_not_just_about_land.html


posted by konane  # 10:43 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

 

Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About

Found a link to this video on another site, rather lengthy, but well done. 
 "Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About
 1 hr 17 min 30 sec - Jul 18, 2006
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6162397493278181614

posted by konane  # 8:12 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

 

"Media Caught Over Qana Photos

Well looks like the media and UN are on the side of Islamafascism.  I connected the dots a long time ago.  How 'bout you???

"MEDIA CAUGHT OVER QANA PHOTOS

Remember those photos that have been running in the media showing a rescue worker holding a dead child following the Israeli air strike  in Qana?  The message of those pictures has been powerful: look at what those evil Israelis did to that poor, innocent child.  Well, now we learn that all may not be what it seems.

Many of those pictures were taken by the photographers for wire services like the Associated Press,  Reuters and the always pro-terrorist Agence France-Presse, also known as AFP.  But an enterprising British blogger decided to dig a bit deeper.  (  http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/game-set-and-match.html  )  He looked at the time stamp on some of the photos and noticed a discrepancy.  A big one.

Without getting too technical, it was noticed that one of the photos taken at 7:21 by the AP shows a dead girl in an ambulance.  Then, in a picture taken at 10:25am ... 3 hours later .... it shows the same girl being loaded into an ambulance.  Yet another picture shows the same girl 20 minutes later, being carried by a rescue worker ... with no ambulance around.

In the ambulance ... out of the ambulance ... no ambulance at all.  What does this tell us?  The photos were staged.  They're propaganda. Who would do such a thing?  Hezbollah, of course.  And why would the media be a willing accomplice in such a bold attempt to invent negative media coverage against Israel?  Because they hate the United States and/or Israel, or because they're just plain on the side of the Islamofascists.

Now that the wire services and their photographers have been called out on it, they're all dancing on the head of a pin trying to explain away the discrepancy.  They've been nailed as willing participants in the Islamic terror propaganda efforts. "


 http://boortz.com/nuze/200608/08022006.html#qana


posted by konane  # 3:16 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

 

"Stage-Managed Massacre

Thank goodness for the internet.  Without it they just might have pulled this one off. 

Wonder why the MSM doesn't use the internet in their reporting, or do they choose to be a sock-puppet of Islamafascism?  Just perhaps the hand that moves the mouth feels way too good.  Shocked


"Stage-Managed Massacre
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 2, 2006

 

“The Israeli air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana early Sunday morning did more than kill 57 civilians,” says Jefferson Morley in the Washington Post. “According to a wide range of commentary in the international media, it inflamed already boiling public opinion in the Arab world against Israel, undermined what little support the United States has among the Lebanese people, and illuminated the continuing inability of Israel and the United States to achieve their goal of decisively weakening Hezbollah.” The Hindustan Times editorialized that “with Qana, one senses that the Israelis’ definition of ‘collateral damage’ has started to bear a striking resemblance to that of the very terrorist organisation that they are keen to destroy.” At a rally outside the State Department building protesting the Qana “massacre” on Monday, Leftist protestors chanted, “Hey, Rice! What do you say? How many kids have you killed today?”; “Israel Out of Lebanon! Ceasefire, Now”; and “Shame! Shame! Shame, on you!” An Australian Muslim in Qana told Australia’s Herald Sun: “I would say a few hundred have died. This isn’t war, it’s genocide.”

 

Except for one little detail: it is increasingly clear that the Qana “massacre” was a stage-managed Hizballah production, designed precisely to enflame international sentiment against Israel and compel the Israelis to accept a ceasefire that would enable the jihad terrorist group to gain some time to recover from the Israeli attacks. Some of the principal evidence for this:

 

Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, declared that “War is deceit.” Specifically, he taught that lying was permissible in battle. [1] While the doctrines of religious deception (taqiyya and kitman) are most often identified with Shi’ite Islam, and ostensibly rejected by Sunnis, because they were sanctioned by the Prophet, they can still be found in traditions that Sunni Muslims consider reliable, and are practiced among Salafis. Jihadists today have spoken of the usefulness of deceptive practices.

 

Americans and Westerners are not used to dealing with carefully orchestrated and large-scale deception of this kind. It is time that it be recognized as a weapon of warfare, and an extremely potent one at that. Qana has already largely accomplished what it was supposed to. It will now take its place beside the Danish cartoons, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and all the rest as a useful focal point for Muslim outrage and a magnet for jihad recruitment. The dhimmi Leftist Western press is happy, for it can again show America and Israel as guilty in the world’s site. The mujahedin are happy, for jihad and Sharia will advance still more. The only people who couldn’t possibly be happy with this are the Israelis and others on the front lines of the jihad worldwide.

 

But who cares about them?

 

Notes:

[1] Bukhari, vol. 4, book 56, no. 3030; Muslim, vol. 4, book 32, no. 6303.  "

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23655

posted by konane  # 9:43 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

 

"Fla. Man Sentenced For Having Sex Slave

Since law enforcements' attention is being focused in this direction, wonder how many more cases will come to light??  Also wonder how many missing US children have fallen to human trafficing in foreign countries?


 

 

"Fla. Man Sentenced For Having Sex Slave

 

POSTED: 6:39 am EDT August 2, 2006
UPDATED: 6:42 am EDT August 2, 2006

 

A North Fort Myers man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in harboring a 13-year-old girl kept as a sex slave and housekeeper.

 

U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Hernandez Covington gave Fernando Pascual, 22, what she considered a lenient sentence Tuesday. As part of a plea deal, Pascual pleaded guilty in March to charges of sex trafficking and harboring an illegal immigrant for commercial gain. His sentence of 10 years was in exchange for the victim not having to testify because she was traumatized, Covington said.

 

"These are truly horrible crimes you have committed and they will not be tolerated in the United States," Covington said.

 

Pascual, his sister, Matilde Pascual Andres, and Andres' husband, Pascual Miguel Sebastian, were charged in May 2005 with harboring a young girl in a Cape Coral home. Prosecutors said the girl was bought in Guatemala and brought to Cape Coral, where she was raped, beaten and forced to work."..................
http://www.local6.com/news/9613282/detail.html

posted by konane  # 9:11 AM 4 comments

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

 

Colorado "Woman jailed in housekeeper slavery case


"Woman jailed in housekeeper slavery case
Tue Aug 1, 6:46 PM ET

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - A woman was sentenced to two months in jail Tuesday for effectively stealing the services of an Indonesian woman who prosecutors said was held as a virtual slave for four years.

Sarah Khonaizan, 35, a Saudi citizen who lives in suburban Denver, also was ordered on the theft charge to pay $90,000 in restitution and was ordered not to have any contact with the 24-year-old woman."...........

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_us/slavery_charges_1 


posted by konane  # 10:02 PM 2 comments

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

 

"Why the World Should Stand Back and Let Israel Do What It Has to Do

If you're into PC or have a weak stomach .... go read something else. 

This is what Israel should be allowed to do until the job is done and not one minute sooner.


"COMMENTARY: Why the World Should Stand Back and Let Israel Do What It Has to Do
 
By Dave Wilson
Captain (Ret.) U.S. Navy

Source HuntingtonNews.net 
 
When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from my ship.
 
All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine... figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's mutilated ear.
 
Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with aseries of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.
 
Each punch opened a cut on the Marine's startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows.
 
Nobody moved. Not one person.
 
The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine's head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.
 
Finally the Marine's pleading turned to screams.... a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly. Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back. You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: "Say [punch] you [punch] give [punch] up [punch]... say [punch] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [punch]".
 
He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.
 
This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters... right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up... or that he was wrong.
 
Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I'm sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.
 
Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked "I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him.
 
I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.
 
I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine's woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:
 
This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.
 
Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.
 
President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.
 
Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success: Instigate a war.
 
Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.
 
Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.
 
Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.
 
This tactic has never failed. Not once.
 
In fact it worked so well for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War -- a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel -- as a military victory! No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!
 
President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters."
 
Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer.
 
He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country. And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw.
 
As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous defeat."
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/060729-wilson-comment.html

posted by konane  # 5:43 PM 4 comments

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

 

Cartoons

From http://www.townhall.com/funnies/2006/08/01/13

posted by konane  # 12:01 PM 0 comments

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