It is hard to conceive how anyone could screw up a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. According to Michael Medved, that is exactly what President Obama did when he attended his first prayer breakfast as president. Apparently, Obama addressed those gathered at the breakfast with a speech containing numerous inaccuracies.
In a recent Townhall.com column, among a list of glaring inaccuracies presented by Obama, Medved considered this statement as the president's most noteworthy single passage: "We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we're going next - and some subscribe to no faith at all. But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. That much we know."
Medved wrote, "With this sweeping simplification, the President of the United States offered instant exoneration to those who follow the false God of fanatical Islam.........." Medved quipped, "No God who condones taking the life of innocent human beings?" He revealed that three days after the prayer breakfast, "British MP (member of parliament) John Whittingdale, Chairman of the House of Commons Media Select Committee, condemned Al Jazeera's English language network for broadcasting live sermons by esteemed cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi 'celebrating the Holocaust and praying for the killing of all Jews.'"
Medved continued, "Every Friday without exception, radical mosques in various corners of the planet conduct prayerful services not only condoning, but demanding, the massacre of innocents - services often followed by riots and violence. If President Obama paused to consider the nineteen deeply devout (Muslim) hijackers who slaughtered 3,000 Americans on 9/11, and if he reflected on the tens of millions of Muslims around the world who celebrate these killers as 'the Magnificent Nineteen,' could he honestly conclude 'that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate'?"
I am not going into the other Obama speech inaccuracies reported by Medved because what I have covered so far is in keeping with several of my past blogs. Winston Churchill once called Islam "the most retrograde force in the world" and he compared Hitler's "Mein Kampf" to the Quran. I have always maintained history has shown that Muslims adhere to a faith that is NOT and NEVER has been a religion of peace.
No God who condones taking the life of innocent human beings? Muhammad, the father of Islam, was a brutal warlord who had his opponents murdered, had prisoners of war executed, and personally participated in slaughtering the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. And how does Obama think the Muslims took over much of Africa, Asia and parts of Europe? How did some zealots from Mecca manage to establish Islam in Indonesia where Obama spent part of his schooling? Muhammad ordered the faithful to take up the sword and go forth to conquer the world in the name of Allah. And so, with the clarion call of "death to the infidels," the faithful set forth from Mecca to kill those who would not convert to Islam.
Muslim clerics have been calling for the deaths of innocents in the name of Allah ever since. Just today, IsraelNationalNews.com reported on the latest sermons by prominent Islamic clerics. Sheik Himam Sa'id, tbe Supreme Guide (cleric) of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, called on Palestinian Authority Arabs to formally start a third intifada and carry out suicide bombing attacks to "slaughter the Jews" in Israel. Husan Abdallah, a representative of the Lebanese Association of Islamic Scholars, urged the faithful to "Let pure bodies (suicide bombers) blow up again in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and in all the cities of occupied Palestine (Israel)," adding that they "will be martyrs for the sake of Allah."
Medved's column emphasized that Islam is a religion of hate. The Palestinian-Americans who protested in San Francisco, in Columbus, Ohio and in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida against Israel's attack on Gaza clearly demonstrated that Islam is a religion of hate by calling for the slaughter of Jews and by extolling the Holocaust. Muslim hatred of Jews, and of Christians as well, has existed since Muhammad's time and that time was some 1,300 years before the birth of Israel.
I am convinced that President Obama knowingly included inaccuracies in his prayer breakfast speech as his way of sucking up to the Muslim World. But history tells us the truth. With all that despicable Muslim hatred, it's no wonder why columnist Burt Prelutsky would say that, instead of two, there are now three certaintees - death, taxes and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
REGISTRATION OF SEX OFFENDERS
A Houston area English teacher just had a trial in which she was charged with Sexual Assault of a Child. The 43-year-old teacher had been accused of having oral sex with two high school football players. After the jury was deadlocked for two days, she accepted a plea deal in which she pled guilty to two counts of Improper Relations with a Student and received 10 years probation.
Andy Kahan, director of the (Houston) mayor's Crime Victims Assistance office, then appeared on a local television news broadcast and threw a fit. What was Kahan, who I almost always agree with, so incensed about? He threw a fit because the former teacher was allowed to plead guilty to charges which do not require her to register as a sex offender. Conviction on the original charges would have required her to so register. He told the interviewer that there was now a bill before the Texas legislature which would require teachers convicted of Improper Relations With a Student to register as a sex offender and urged viewers to contact their representatives and senators requesting they pass this legislation.
Our nation's sex offender registration laws were intended to protect potential victims from dangerous sexual predators, and that is well and good. But all sex offenders are not dangerous and should those who are not dangerous be treated the same way as those who should not be released from prisons in the first place? Our registration laws are examples of well intentioned lesgislation poorly written.
Now those who know me personally recognize me as a hardline law and order type. But, those who have read my blog, "Let's Be Reasonable With the Registration of Sex Offenders" (2-18-08), also know that I do not agree with way in which sex offender registration laws are applied. There are dangerous sex offenders who should be required to register and there are those who commit certain acts of sexual misconduct that should not be subject to those requirements.
In my previous blog I wrote: "Let me make myself perfectly clear. I have no sympathy whatsoever for sexual predators. Shooting is to good for those who sexually molest infants, toddlers and pre-teens. They deserve the death penalty. At the very least, they should serve the rest of their lives confined behind bars, never seeing the light of day outside of prison walls. None of this crap about an abusive childhood or a diminished mental capacity. Those who forcibly rape older juveniles and adults deserve a harsh prison term and, if released, should be required to register as sex offenders."
Please bear with me while I use additional statements from that blog. "A 'weenie waver' is a sex offender while some jerk taking a leak in public is not. Yet, when the guy taking a piss is convicted of indecent exposure, he is required to register as a sex offender. When a 20 year-old is convicted of having consensual sex with a 17 year-old, he is also required to register."
"............from the sublime to the ridiculous, the new federal Adam Walsh Act even mandates that any male juvenile who had consensual sex with a female juvenile must be included in the national sex offender registry, a requirement that is strongly opposed by many prosecutors and by most probation and social service officials."
"School teachers who have sex with a student should be fired, have their teaching credentials permanently revoked, and be punished by the law. But, should a female teacher be required to register as a sex offender for fulfilling every red-blooded young schoolboy's dream? I think not! Male teachers who engage in sex with their students, and lesbian teachers who have affairs with female students, subject themselves to sexual predator laws. But a female teacher, who has one of her ecstatic male students "get lucky" with her, hardly seems to be a sexual predator in the strictest sense of the term."
The problem with registration laws is that those who have to register may be subjected to some stipulations which, for those who are not dangerous predators, are simply unreasonable. Convicted sex offenders are prohibited form residing within certain distances from any school, child care center, playground or any other place where children might gather. When that distance reaches 1,500 feet, there are few places, if any, where a sex offender can live. In Miami, that distance is 2,500 feet. Thus, Miami has made its sex offenders homeless people.
So there you have it. I hope you agree with me that it is ridiculous to require a guy who takes a leak in the street to register as a sex offender. The same for a male juvenile who has consensual sex with a female juvenile. The same for a young adult man who has consensual sex with a 17-year-old girl. And the same for a female teacher who gives a blow job to a high school student or has a good roll in the sack with him.
In addition to the 10-year probationary term, the former Houston area English teacher had to surrender her teaching credentials for life and cannot be around any children under 17 without a chaperone. That is good! She was also granted deferred adjudication, meaning that the conviction will be removed from her record if she successfully completes her probation. I don't have a problem with that as long as she can never teach again.
I hope that those of you who live in Texas do not follow Andy Kahan's request. Instead, I strongly urge you to contact your state representative and senator, requesting them to vote against goofy legislation that will require teachers convicted of improper relations with a student to register as sex offenders.
Andy Kahan, director of the (Houston) mayor's Crime Victims Assistance office, then appeared on a local television news broadcast and threw a fit. What was Kahan, who I almost always agree with, so incensed about? He threw a fit because the former teacher was allowed to plead guilty to charges which do not require her to register as a sex offender. Conviction on the original charges would have required her to so register. He told the interviewer that there was now a bill before the Texas legislature which would require teachers convicted of Improper Relations With a Student to register as a sex offender and urged viewers to contact their representatives and senators requesting they pass this legislation.
Our nation's sex offender registration laws were intended to protect potential victims from dangerous sexual predators, and that is well and good. But all sex offenders are not dangerous and should those who are not dangerous be treated the same way as those who should not be released from prisons in the first place? Our registration laws are examples of well intentioned lesgislation poorly written.
Now those who know me personally recognize me as a hardline law and order type. But, those who have read my blog, "Let's Be Reasonable With the Registration of Sex Offenders" (2-18-08), also know that I do not agree with way in which sex offender registration laws are applied. There are dangerous sex offenders who should be required to register and there are those who commit certain acts of sexual misconduct that should not be subject to those requirements.
In my previous blog I wrote: "Let me make myself perfectly clear. I have no sympathy whatsoever for sexual predators. Shooting is to good for those who sexually molest infants, toddlers and pre-teens. They deserve the death penalty. At the very least, they should serve the rest of their lives confined behind bars, never seeing the light of day outside of prison walls. None of this crap about an abusive childhood or a diminished mental capacity. Those who forcibly rape older juveniles and adults deserve a harsh prison term and, if released, should be required to register as sex offenders."
Please bear with me while I use additional statements from that blog. "A 'weenie waver' is a sex offender while some jerk taking a leak in public is not. Yet, when the guy taking a piss is convicted of indecent exposure, he is required to register as a sex offender. When a 20 year-old is convicted of having consensual sex with a 17 year-old, he is also required to register."
"............from the sublime to the ridiculous, the new federal Adam Walsh Act even mandates that any male juvenile who had consensual sex with a female juvenile must be included in the national sex offender registry, a requirement that is strongly opposed by many prosecutors and by most probation and social service officials."
"School teachers who have sex with a student should be fired, have their teaching credentials permanently revoked, and be punished by the law. But, should a female teacher be required to register as a sex offender for fulfilling every red-blooded young schoolboy's dream? I think not! Male teachers who engage in sex with their students, and lesbian teachers who have affairs with female students, subject themselves to sexual predator laws. But a female teacher, who has one of her ecstatic male students "get lucky" with her, hardly seems to be a sexual predator in the strictest sense of the term."
The problem with registration laws is that those who have to register may be subjected to some stipulations which, for those who are not dangerous predators, are simply unreasonable. Convicted sex offenders are prohibited form residing within certain distances from any school, child care center, playground or any other place where children might gather. When that distance reaches 1,500 feet, there are few places, if any, where a sex offender can live. In Miami, that distance is 2,500 feet. Thus, Miami has made its sex offenders homeless people.
So there you have it. I hope you agree with me that it is ridiculous to require a guy who takes a leak in the street to register as a sex offender. The same for a male juvenile who has consensual sex with a female juvenile. The same for a young adult man who has consensual sex with a 17-year-old girl. And the same for a female teacher who gives a blow job to a high school student or has a good roll in the sack with him.
In addition to the 10-year probationary term, the former Houston area English teacher had to surrender her teaching credentials for life and cannot be around any children under 17 without a chaperone. That is good! She was also granted deferred adjudication, meaning that the conviction will be removed from her record if she successfully completes her probation. I don't have a problem with that as long as she can never teach again.
I hope that those of you who live in Texas do not follow Andy Kahan's request. Instead, I strongly urge you to contact your state representative and senator, requesting them to vote against goofy legislation that will require teachers convicted of improper relations with a student to register as sex offenders.
THREE CERTAINTIES: DEATH, TAXES AND THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLCT
In today's Townhall.com, Burt Prelutsky has a great column which illustrates the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - when President Obama leaves office, whether four or eight years from now, no peace will have been achieved between the two adversaries. Here is Prelutsky's Townhall.com column:
ISRAEL IS A LAMB AMONG WOLVES
by Burt Prelutsky
When I was very young, people were accustomed to saying that the only two certainties were death and taxes. Over the years, there’s a third item that could be added to the list: Every American president will try and fail to bring peace to the Middle East. Obama is merely the latest to put it at the top of his to-do list. My guess is that four or eight years down the road, long after he has managed to cure the leper and raise the dead, it will still be at the top of his list.
I hate to be a pessimist, but I see no reason not to be. While the folks in Gaza didn’t have two great choices during their last election, much like the electorate here in the U.S., they opted for the greater of two evils, much like the electorate here in the U.S.. They voted for Hamas, a terrorist group sworn to wipe Israel off the map -- the actual map, that is, not merely the fantasy maps they use in their schoolbooks.
It confounds me when people in America and non-Muslims in Europe attempt to find a moral equivalency between Israel and her enemies. For one thing, they invariably find Israel culpable. Israel may not always be right, but that’s far better than always being wrong. I mean, how does anyone living in a civilized nation dare argue on behalf of people who treat their women as chattel and who treat Christians and Jews even worse?
The same bigots who condemn Israel for killing Arab children when they respond to countless missile attacks never seem to condemn the Arabs for either firing those missiles or for using women and children as shields when Israel finally retaliates.
Israel has had nuclear weapons for a good number of years, but has never once used them. Is there anyone anywhere who honestly believes that if Israel’s enemies had nuclear capability, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be anything but moonscapes by this time?
Those who claim to find a moral equivalency between the two sides in the Middle East are those who, themselves, have no sense of morality. Decades ago, Abba Eban observed that Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. He was of course referring to their failure to seek a peaceful resolution. But it isn’t peace the Palestinians want. Neither is it statehood. Even Clinton, who had Yasser Arafat sleeping in Lincoln’s bedroom far more often than Lincoln ever had, got the Israelis to offer up 97% of what Arafat was demanding. The way Arafat stormed off, you would have thought the Israelis had asked to have sex on a first date.
People who believe that Israel was wrested from the Arabs by the U.N. in 1948 are simply ignorant of the facts. Zionists had been buying up desert property at wildly inflated prices for several decades by then. All that happened in 1948 was that the U.N. recognized Israel as a sovereign state. Although the Arabs were invited to remain where they were, they were told by Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, to leave so that the invading forces wouldn’t have to worry about collateral damage when they eradicated the Jews. The departing Arabs were assured that they’d soon be free to return and share in the spoils. At the time of the invasion, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, left no room for doubt when he declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." That was 61 years ago and the grandkids and great-grandkids of those who fled and wound up in Gaza are still waiting for that Great Come and Get It Day.
Recently, Pat Buchanan, sounding, as usual, an awful lot like Jimmy Carter, wrote a piece advising Israel to surrender still more land for peace. Well, why not? It’s always worked so well in the past. Whenever I read Buchanan on the Middle East conflict, I find myself wondering if his solution to the problem of illegal immigration in America would be to hand Texas, Arizona and California, over to Mexico.
Perhaps next time, just as a change of pace, Mr. Buchanan might consider giving the Arabs the benefit of his wisdom. Perhaps something along the lines of "In case you haven’t noticed, it’s 2009, not 1009. Stop behaving like bloody savages!"
ISRAEL IS A LAMB AMONG WOLVES
by Burt Prelutsky
When I was very young, people were accustomed to saying that the only two certainties were death and taxes. Over the years, there’s a third item that could be added to the list: Every American president will try and fail to bring peace to the Middle East. Obama is merely the latest to put it at the top of his to-do list. My guess is that four or eight years down the road, long after he has managed to cure the leper and raise the dead, it will still be at the top of his list.
I hate to be a pessimist, but I see no reason not to be. While the folks in Gaza didn’t have two great choices during their last election, much like the electorate here in the U.S., they opted for the greater of two evils, much like the electorate here in the U.S.. They voted for Hamas, a terrorist group sworn to wipe Israel off the map -- the actual map, that is, not merely the fantasy maps they use in their schoolbooks.
It confounds me when people in America and non-Muslims in Europe attempt to find a moral equivalency between Israel and her enemies. For one thing, they invariably find Israel culpable. Israel may not always be right, but that’s far better than always being wrong. I mean, how does anyone living in a civilized nation dare argue on behalf of people who treat their women as chattel and who treat Christians and Jews even worse?
The same bigots who condemn Israel for killing Arab children when they respond to countless missile attacks never seem to condemn the Arabs for either firing those missiles or for using women and children as shields when Israel finally retaliates.
Israel has had nuclear weapons for a good number of years, but has never once used them. Is there anyone anywhere who honestly believes that if Israel’s enemies had nuclear capability, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be anything but moonscapes by this time?
Those who claim to find a moral equivalency between the two sides in the Middle East are those who, themselves, have no sense of morality. Decades ago, Abba Eban observed that Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. He was of course referring to their failure to seek a peaceful resolution. But it isn’t peace the Palestinians want. Neither is it statehood. Even Clinton, who had Yasser Arafat sleeping in Lincoln’s bedroom far more often than Lincoln ever had, got the Israelis to offer up 97% of what Arafat was demanding. The way Arafat stormed off, you would have thought the Israelis had asked to have sex on a first date.
People who believe that Israel was wrested from the Arabs by the U.N. in 1948 are simply ignorant of the facts. Zionists had been buying up desert property at wildly inflated prices for several decades by then. All that happened in 1948 was that the U.N. recognized Israel as a sovereign state. Although the Arabs were invited to remain where they were, they were told by Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, to leave so that the invading forces wouldn’t have to worry about collateral damage when they eradicated the Jews. The departing Arabs were assured that they’d soon be free to return and share in the spoils. At the time of the invasion, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, left no room for doubt when he declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." That was 61 years ago and the grandkids and great-grandkids of those who fled and wound up in Gaza are still waiting for that Great Come and Get It Day.
Recently, Pat Buchanan, sounding, as usual, an awful lot like Jimmy Carter, wrote a piece advising Israel to surrender still more land for peace. Well, why not? It’s always worked so well in the past. Whenever I read Buchanan on the Middle East conflict, I find myself wondering if his solution to the problem of illegal immigration in America would be to hand Texas, Arizona and California, over to Mexico.
Perhaps next time, just as a change of pace, Mr. Buchanan might consider giving the Arabs the benefit of his wisdom. Perhaps something along the lines of "In case you haven’t noticed, it’s 2009, not 1009. Stop behaving like bloody savages!"
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
HOW COULD THE VATICAN NOT HAVE KNOWN?
As a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, I was personally offended by the Pope's revocation of Bishop Richard Williamson's excommunication. For over 20 years, Williamson has made many anti-Semitic pronouncements and Holocaust denials. On the very day the Pope revoked his excommunication, Williamson told a Swedish television audience that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers and that, instead of six million Jews, only 200 - 300,000 died in Hitler's concentration camps.
It is possibile that the Pope was unaware of Williamson's hatred of Jews and Holocaust denials, but it is incomprehensible to me that other high ranking Vatican officials did not know of his many offensive pronouncements. Now that he knows, has the Pope reversed the revocation? No! Instead, Vatican authoirities have ordered Williamson to publicly distance himself from his positions on the Holocaust and to issue an apology. WHAT A JOKE! What kind of fools does the Vatican take us for? After expressing his hatred of Jews over and over again for the past 20 years, does anyone in his right mind believe that any retraction or apology Williamson might make will be sincere? Of course not!
Anti-Semites like Williamson do not bother me nearly as much as does the manner in which the excommunication revocation was handled by the Pope and other Vatican authorities. Both sets of my grandparents were among the six million Jews that perished in the Holocaust. Had my parents not had the good fortune in 1936 of being able to come to America, they and I would have been among those six million Jews who perished in Hitler's concentration camps, with many of them being put to death in gas chambers.
In yesterday's Townhalll.com, Dennis Prager had a column on this whole sordid affair. Here is that column:
WHEN A PRIEST DENIES THE HOLOCAUST
by Dennis Prager
For those of us, Christians and non-Christians, who count themselves as friends of Catholics and their church, these have been a bad few weeks.
On Jan. 21, Pope Benedict XVI revoked the excommunication of four priests who, in 1988, were illegally ordained bishops by the late renegade archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Those ordinations led to Pope John Paul II excommunicating Lefebvre and the four priests.
One of those four was Richard Williamson, who announced in an interview aired on Swedish television in November 2008 and on January 21, 2009 that "two hundred (thousand) to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps. None of them in a gas chamber."
In the interview, Williamson also referred to the Holocaust as "the, quote unquote, Holocaust ..." He has long been a Holocaust denier. As far back as 1989, for example, he risked criminal prosecution in Canada, where he praised books written by Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.
While empirically true, it is misleading to simply say, as many news reports have, that Pope Benedict repealed the excommunication of a Holocaust denier. It is highly unlikely that the pope, a German who has visited Auschwitz and spoken forcefully about the Shoah (the pope used the Hebrew term for the Holocaust), knew about Williamson's Holocaust denial. The pope, in his fervent desire to end schisms within the church, decided, wisely or not, to reach out to one prominent schismatic group, the extreme right-wing Lefebvre organization known as the Society of St. Pius X.
But it was obviously a mistake in the case of the Lefebvre priests. Williamson is a truly bad man who disgraces the church. When one watches him spew his venom in the Swedish television interview while wearing a large cross, the cross is rendered ugly -- just as the Muslim crescent is rendered ugly by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he spews his Holocaust-denying venom.
What is perplexing is not that the pope and/or his top officials made a serious mistake by readmitting Williamson into the church. People make mistakes. What is perplexing is that the moment Williamson's big lie and Jew-hatred became known, the revocation of his excommunication was not halted or reversed. Rather, the Vatican demanded that he must "unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah."
On the assumption that there not only theological but also moral criteria to being reinstated in the Catholic Church, an excommunicated priest who denies the Holocaust should automatically remain excommunicated. Would a priest who denied that Jesus was crucified have his excommunication rescinded? Both Christians and non-Christians believe that Jesus was crucified despite the fact that we have so much more proof of the Holocaust than we do of Jesus' crucifixion. Yet, here is a priest denying the Holocaust of Jesus' people, as if those nearly 6 million European Jews all died of old age.
One would love to ask these Holocaust deniers one question: Poland had three 3 million Jews in 1939 and almost none in 1945. Where did those 3 million Jews go?
A man who denies the Holocaust is either a liar on a magnitude difficult for most mortals to comprehend, or a manifestly sick human being for whom the difference between truth and lie is not discernible, or profoundly anti-Semitic.
Such a person shouldn't be asked to "distance himself from his positions on the Shoah." He should be shunned by the man Catholics believe to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth and by his church. If Williamson is ever to be a Catholic in good standing, he needs to repent from evil, not adopt another "position" on the Holocaust. There are no "positions" on whether the Holocaust took place any more than there are "positions" on whether slavery took place or whether there was a French Revolution.
And if he does repent, we will know. That repentance will take the form of doing work for the victims of the Holocaust that he once said never occurred.
In the meantime, there should be no place for an Ahmadinejad in the Catholic Church.
It is possibile that the Pope was unaware of Williamson's hatred of Jews and Holocaust denials, but it is incomprehensible to me that other high ranking Vatican officials did not know of his many offensive pronouncements. Now that he knows, has the Pope reversed the revocation? No! Instead, Vatican authoirities have ordered Williamson to publicly distance himself from his positions on the Holocaust and to issue an apology. WHAT A JOKE! What kind of fools does the Vatican take us for? After expressing his hatred of Jews over and over again for the past 20 years, does anyone in his right mind believe that any retraction or apology Williamson might make will be sincere? Of course not!
Anti-Semites like Williamson do not bother me nearly as much as does the manner in which the excommunication revocation was handled by the Pope and other Vatican authorities. Both sets of my grandparents were among the six million Jews that perished in the Holocaust. Had my parents not had the good fortune in 1936 of being able to come to America, they and I would have been among those six million Jews who perished in Hitler's concentration camps, with many of them being put to death in gas chambers.
In yesterday's Townhalll.com, Dennis Prager had a column on this whole sordid affair. Here is that column:
WHEN A PRIEST DENIES THE HOLOCAUST
by Dennis Prager
For those of us, Christians and non-Christians, who count themselves as friends of Catholics and their church, these have been a bad few weeks.
On Jan. 21, Pope Benedict XVI revoked the excommunication of four priests who, in 1988, were illegally ordained bishops by the late renegade archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Those ordinations led to Pope John Paul II excommunicating Lefebvre and the four priests.
One of those four was Richard Williamson, who announced in an interview aired on Swedish television in November 2008 and on January 21, 2009 that "two hundred (thousand) to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps. None of them in a gas chamber."
In the interview, Williamson also referred to the Holocaust as "the, quote unquote, Holocaust ..." He has long been a Holocaust denier. As far back as 1989, for example, he risked criminal prosecution in Canada, where he praised books written by Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.
While empirically true, it is misleading to simply say, as many news reports have, that Pope Benedict repealed the excommunication of a Holocaust denier. It is highly unlikely that the pope, a German who has visited Auschwitz and spoken forcefully about the Shoah (the pope used the Hebrew term for the Holocaust), knew about Williamson's Holocaust denial. The pope, in his fervent desire to end schisms within the church, decided, wisely or not, to reach out to one prominent schismatic group, the extreme right-wing Lefebvre organization known as the Society of St. Pius X.
But it was obviously a mistake in the case of the Lefebvre priests. Williamson is a truly bad man who disgraces the church. When one watches him spew his venom in the Swedish television interview while wearing a large cross, the cross is rendered ugly -- just as the Muslim crescent is rendered ugly by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he spews his Holocaust-denying venom.
What is perplexing is not that the pope and/or his top officials made a serious mistake by readmitting Williamson into the church. People make mistakes. What is perplexing is that the moment Williamson's big lie and Jew-hatred became known, the revocation of his excommunication was not halted or reversed. Rather, the Vatican demanded that he must "unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah."
On the assumption that there not only theological but also moral criteria to being reinstated in the Catholic Church, an excommunicated priest who denies the Holocaust should automatically remain excommunicated. Would a priest who denied that Jesus was crucified have his excommunication rescinded? Both Christians and non-Christians believe that Jesus was crucified despite the fact that we have so much more proof of the Holocaust than we do of Jesus' crucifixion. Yet, here is a priest denying the Holocaust of Jesus' people, as if those nearly 6 million European Jews all died of old age.
One would love to ask these Holocaust deniers one question: Poland had three 3 million Jews in 1939 and almost none in 1945. Where did those 3 million Jews go?
A man who denies the Holocaust is either a liar on a magnitude difficult for most mortals to comprehend, or a manifestly sick human being for whom the difference between truth and lie is not discernible, or profoundly anti-Semitic.
Such a person shouldn't be asked to "distance himself from his positions on the Shoah." He should be shunned by the man Catholics believe to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth and by his church. If Williamson is ever to be a Catholic in good standing, he needs to repent from evil, not adopt another "position" on the Holocaust. There are no "positions" on whether the Holocaust took place any more than there are "positions" on whether slavery took place or whether there was a French Revolution.
And if he does repent, we will know. That repentance will take the form of doing work for the victims of the Holocaust that he once said never occurred.
In the meantime, there should be no place for an Ahmadinejad in the Catholic Church.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
AMAZON CULTURE CLASH
Evngelical Christian missionaries have long been involved in a culture clash with the primitive Indians of the Amazon. A story on the missionaries in Brazil was featured last week on ABC World News. It reminded me of what I experienced in 1991 during a special expedition deep into the Venezuelan Amazon.
The ABC news story dealt with the activities of the American evangelical group, Youth With A Mission, and its work with the primitive Suruwaha Indian tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. The Brazilian government claims that the missionaries are trying to convert the Suruwahas to Christianity, thereby destroying an ancient civilization in the process.
The missionaries claim that they are only trying to stop the Suruwahas from committing infanticide of newborns with deformaties and they insist they are not trying to convert the tribe's members. But the Brazilian government, like everyone else, knows that the real reason for the Youth With A Mission group to be there is to evangelize the Indians, not to stop infanticide.
The Amazon rain forest is about 1.6 million square miles in size, covering about 40 percent of South America, including parts of Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru and Ecuador. A number of stone-age-like Indian tribes live within the Brazilian and Venezuelan Amazon. It is common practice for these primitive Indians to kill any newborns with deformities. In an environment where it is hard to survive under the best of circumstances, these infants are killed because experience has taught the Indians that deformed babies have little chance of surviving in the harsh jungle environment.
In 1991, my son and I, and a friend of mine, received special permission from the Venezuelan government to visit the Yanomamo Indians who live deep in the Venezuelan and Brazilian Amazon. The Yanomamo men are still warriors and have been known to attack outsiders. As a matter of fact, the military in Tamatama (the last outpost in that region) warned us that we would be at some risk by venturing into their habitat. We managed to safely find and visit two Yanomamo villages. In one of those villages most of the Yanomamos were suffering from malaria, with several infants and adults near death.
The evangelical mission on the Padama River is the mission that is nearest to the Yanomamo's habitat. When we stopped there on the way to and from the Yanomamo villages, it was quite obvious that the missionaries were there for the purpose of converting the Indians to Christianity. While there, the missionaries told me about the infanticide of deformed Yanomamo infants and, even worse, that multiple birth babies were buried alive because they were believed to be an evil omen.
Like the government of Brazil, the Venezuelan government accuses the missionaries of destroying the ancient civilization of the Indians. Let's face it, the missions exist for the purpose of converting the heathens to Christianity. To their credit, the missions do provide an education and badly needed medical services to the Indians. But what happens to the Indians after they've been converted and educated. They leave the jungle and head for the cities to seek employment. Unfortunately for them, jobs are few and far between and they find themselves in surroundings far different from their former jungle habitat.
I spent a few days in Puerto Ayacucho, the state capital of Venezuela's Amazonia territory. It was sickening to see what the Christianization of the mission Indians has done to them. Just as with our American Indians, alcoholism runs rampant among the former jungle inhabitants. I saw hundreds of drunken Indians, quite a few passed out on Puerto Ayacucho's sidewalks and in its street gutters.
I don't know about the Suruwahas, but I do know that the Yanomamos are between a rock and a hard place - they are being decimated by malaria. It was estimated that they numbered around 65,000 in the early 1900s. Their numbers have dwindled down to a few thousand. If they cannot be saved from malaria they will die off. If the missionaries save them for Jesus they will probably end up dead drunk on the streets of Puerto Ayacucho. In either event, the ancient Yanomamo civilization will have been destroyed.
The ABC news story dealt with the activities of the American evangelical group, Youth With A Mission, and its work with the primitive Suruwaha Indian tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. The Brazilian government claims that the missionaries are trying to convert the Suruwahas to Christianity, thereby destroying an ancient civilization in the process.
The missionaries claim that they are only trying to stop the Suruwahas from committing infanticide of newborns with deformaties and they insist they are not trying to convert the tribe's members. But the Brazilian government, like everyone else, knows that the real reason for the Youth With A Mission group to be there is to evangelize the Indians, not to stop infanticide.
The Amazon rain forest is about 1.6 million square miles in size, covering about 40 percent of South America, including parts of Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru and Ecuador. A number of stone-age-like Indian tribes live within the Brazilian and Venezuelan Amazon. It is common practice for these primitive Indians to kill any newborns with deformities. In an environment where it is hard to survive under the best of circumstances, these infants are killed because experience has taught the Indians that deformed babies have little chance of surviving in the harsh jungle environment.
In 1991, my son and I, and a friend of mine, received special permission from the Venezuelan government to visit the Yanomamo Indians who live deep in the Venezuelan and Brazilian Amazon. The Yanomamo men are still warriors and have been known to attack outsiders. As a matter of fact, the military in Tamatama (the last outpost in that region) warned us that we would be at some risk by venturing into their habitat. We managed to safely find and visit two Yanomamo villages. In one of those villages most of the Yanomamos were suffering from malaria, with several infants and adults near death.
The evangelical mission on the Padama River is the mission that is nearest to the Yanomamo's habitat. When we stopped there on the way to and from the Yanomamo villages, it was quite obvious that the missionaries were there for the purpose of converting the Indians to Christianity. While there, the missionaries told me about the infanticide of deformed Yanomamo infants and, even worse, that multiple birth babies were buried alive because they were believed to be an evil omen.
Like the government of Brazil, the Venezuelan government accuses the missionaries of destroying the ancient civilization of the Indians. Let's face it, the missions exist for the purpose of converting the heathens to Christianity. To their credit, the missions do provide an education and badly needed medical services to the Indians. But what happens to the Indians after they've been converted and educated. They leave the jungle and head for the cities to seek employment. Unfortunately for them, jobs are few and far between and they find themselves in surroundings far different from their former jungle habitat.
I spent a few days in Puerto Ayacucho, the state capital of Venezuela's Amazonia territory. It was sickening to see what the Christianization of the mission Indians has done to them. Just as with our American Indians, alcoholism runs rampant among the former jungle inhabitants. I saw hundreds of drunken Indians, quite a few passed out on Puerto Ayacucho's sidewalks and in its street gutters.
I don't know about the Suruwahas, but I do know that the Yanomamos are between a rock and a hard place - they are being decimated by malaria. It was estimated that they numbered around 65,000 in the early 1900s. Their numbers have dwindled down to a few thousand. If they cannot be saved from malaria they will die off. If the missionaries save them for Jesus they will probably end up dead drunk on the streets of Puerto Ayacucho. In either event, the ancient Yanomamo civilization will have been destroyed.
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
TO ALL ISRAELIS, including those presently in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Florida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Florida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Monday, February 09, 2009
EAST TEXAS JUSTICE
When it comes to law enforcement and justice, East Teaxas, or rather deep East Texas, is a region all of its own. I often told my criminal justice classes that peace officers in East Texas believed that the Miranda Warning was something Santa Ana yelled as the Mexicans charged the Alamo. Even the justices of peace in that region seem to be illiterate when interpreting the state's laws.
Federal and state laws granting the seizure of property involved in or aquired through the use of illicit drug activites are a valuable law enforcement tool in the suppression of drug trafficking. But those seizures can be abused. A glaring example of that abuse in East Texas came to light in yesterday's Houston Chronicle article by Lisa Sandberg. Seems as though the hick cops in two counties have been stopping motorists, primarily black drivers, who are just passing through and seizing their properties to supplement county and town budgets.
Here is Sandberg's Chronicle article:
PROPERTY SEIZURE BY POLICE CALLED 'HIGHWAY PIRACY'
by Lisa Sandberg
TENAHA — A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime.
Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents.
Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.
Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return of what she calls "her life savings."
Dorman’s attorney, David Guillory, calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha "highway piracy," undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.
Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of Dorman and nine other clients who were stripped of their property. All were African-Americans driving either rentals or vehicles with out-of-state plates.
Guillory alleges in the lawsuit that while his clients were detained, they were presented with an ultimatum: waive your rights to your property in exchange for a promise to be released and not be criminally charged. Guillory said most did as Dorman did, signing the waiver to avoid jail.
The state’s asset seizure law doesn’t require that law enforcement agencies file criminal charges in civil forfeiture cases.
It requires only a preponderance of evidence that the property was used in the commission of certain crimes, such as drug crimes, or bought with proceeds of those crimes. That’s a lesser burden than that required in a criminal case.
But Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said the state’s asset forfeiture law is being abused by enough jurisdictions across the state that he wants to rewrite major sections of it this year.
"The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned," he said.
Supporters tout the state’s forfeiture law, when used right, as an essential law enforcement tool, allowing state and local departments the ability to go after criminals using the criminals’ money. Law enforcement agencies last year captured tens of millions of dollars from such seizures statewide, according to records from Whitmire’s office.
But in Tenaha, a town of chicken farms that hugs the Louisiana border, critics say being a black out-of-towner passing through with anything of value is almost evidence of a crime.
Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. "It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force," Bowers said.
Local police, he said, must take aggressive action to stem the drug trade that flows through town via U.S. 59. "No doubt about it. (Highway 59) is a thoroughfare that a lot of no-good people travel on. They take the drugs and sell it and take the money and go right back into Mexico," said Bowers, who has been Tenaha’s mayor for 54 years.
Bowers said he would defer questions about whether innocent people were being stripped of their property to Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell.
Russell could not be reached for comment, and her attorney declined comment. Randy Whatley, a local constable who himself deposited $115,000 into the county’s seizure account for fiscal year 2007 — state records show $45,000 was eventually returned to their owners — also could not be reached for comment. Russell, Whatley and Bowers are named in Guillory’s lawsuit.
Harris County (Houston) District Attorney Patricia Lykos said the state’s forfeiture law, which last year put millions in the coffers of local law enforcement agencies, including hers, takes some of the profit out of crime. "These ill-gotten gains are used to further the aims of law enforcement and public safety," she said. "It’s kind of poetic justice, isn’t it?"
Lykos believes the law, if followed, provides citizens with adequate safeguards. Local police and attorneys in her office, she said, are well-versed in what constitutes adequate evidence for seizures. Rarely, she said, do seizures take place locally without the filing of criminal charges.
In Shelby County, the district attorney made legal agreements with some individuals that her office would not file criminal charges so long as the property owner waived all rights to the valuables.
"In exchange for (respondent) signing the agreed order of forfeiture, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office agrees to reject charges of money laundering pending at this time," read one waiver, dated April 10, 2007.
The property owners named in the waiver had just signed over $7,342 in cash, their 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, a cell phone, a BlackBerry and a stone necklace.
The law, forbids a peace officer at the time of seizure to "request, require or in any manner induce any person ... to execute a document purporting to waive the person’s interest in or rights to the property."
Federal and state laws granting the seizure of property involved in or aquired through the use of illicit drug activites are a valuable law enforcement tool in the suppression of drug trafficking. But those seizures can be abused. A glaring example of that abuse in East Texas came to light in yesterday's Houston Chronicle article by Lisa Sandberg. Seems as though the hick cops in two counties have been stopping motorists, primarily black drivers, who are just passing through and seizing their properties to supplement county and town budgets.
Here is Sandberg's Chronicle article:
PROPERTY SEIZURE BY POLICE CALLED 'HIGHWAY PIRACY'
by Lisa Sandberg
TENAHA — A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime.
Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents.
Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.
Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return of what she calls "her life savings."
Dorman’s attorney, David Guillory, calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha "highway piracy," undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.
Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of Dorman and nine other clients who were stripped of their property. All were African-Americans driving either rentals or vehicles with out-of-state plates.
Guillory alleges in the lawsuit that while his clients were detained, they were presented with an ultimatum: waive your rights to your property in exchange for a promise to be released and not be criminally charged. Guillory said most did as Dorman did, signing the waiver to avoid jail.
The state’s asset seizure law doesn’t require that law enforcement agencies file criminal charges in civil forfeiture cases.
It requires only a preponderance of evidence that the property was used in the commission of certain crimes, such as drug crimes, or bought with proceeds of those crimes. That’s a lesser burden than that required in a criminal case.
But Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said the state’s asset forfeiture law is being abused by enough jurisdictions across the state that he wants to rewrite major sections of it this year.
"The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned," he said.
Supporters tout the state’s forfeiture law, when used right, as an essential law enforcement tool, allowing state and local departments the ability to go after criminals using the criminals’ money. Law enforcement agencies last year captured tens of millions of dollars from such seizures statewide, according to records from Whitmire’s office.
But in Tenaha, a town of chicken farms that hugs the Louisiana border, critics say being a black out-of-towner passing through with anything of value is almost evidence of a crime.
Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. "It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force," Bowers said.
Local police, he said, must take aggressive action to stem the drug trade that flows through town via U.S. 59. "No doubt about it. (Highway 59) is a thoroughfare that a lot of no-good people travel on. They take the drugs and sell it and take the money and go right back into Mexico," said Bowers, who has been Tenaha’s mayor for 54 years.
Bowers said he would defer questions about whether innocent people were being stripped of their property to Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell.
Russell could not be reached for comment, and her attorney declined comment. Randy Whatley, a local constable who himself deposited $115,000 into the county’s seizure account for fiscal year 2007 — state records show $45,000 was eventually returned to their owners — also could not be reached for comment. Russell, Whatley and Bowers are named in Guillory’s lawsuit.
Harris County (Houston) District Attorney Patricia Lykos said the state’s forfeiture law, which last year put millions in the coffers of local law enforcement agencies, including hers, takes some of the profit out of crime. "These ill-gotten gains are used to further the aims of law enforcement and public safety," she said. "It’s kind of poetic justice, isn’t it?"
Lykos believes the law, if followed, provides citizens with adequate safeguards. Local police and attorneys in her office, she said, are well-versed in what constitutes adequate evidence for seizures. Rarely, she said, do seizures take place locally without the filing of criminal charges.
In Shelby County, the district attorney made legal agreements with some individuals that her office would not file criminal charges so long as the property owner waived all rights to the valuables.
"In exchange for (respondent) signing the agreed order of forfeiture, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office agrees to reject charges of money laundering pending at this time," read one waiver, dated April 10, 2007.
The property owners named in the waiver had just signed over $7,342 in cash, their 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, a cell phone, a BlackBerry and a stone necklace.
The law, forbids a peace officer at the time of seizure to "request, require or in any manner induce any person ... to execute a document purporting to waive the person’s interest in or rights to the property."
DEA TO BE DEFANGED
Just as a study of 369 men published in the journal Cancer found being a regular pot smoker doubled the risk of developing testicular cancer, one of the most common cancers in younger men, comes word that the Obama administration will order the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to stop raiding California's "medical" marijuana shops.
Thirteen states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana. California is the only state that allows businesses to dispense marijuana and to advertise their services. Federal law prohibits the possession, distribution or cultivation of marijuana for any reason. The DEA has been raiding California's pot pharmacies ever since they were legalized by state law. Last week DEA agents raided four pot shops in Los Angeles and seized 500 pounds of marijuana.
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro has just released this statement: "The president believes that fderal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind." Shapiro's statement was in keeping with statements Obama made on the campaign trail. In other words, Obama will tell the DEA to BUG OFF!
California's pot heads and pot shop owners must be jumping up and down with joy. Said Mark Kleinman, a UCLA professor and former Justice Department official, "This message is, this is no longer drug warrior time. We are not on a cultural crusade against pot-smoking." Keinman also put it another way: "It is no longer federal policy to beat up on hippies."
Cultural crudade? Beat up on hippies? What a crock of supreme shit! Kleinman's statements clearly show that he is not talking about medical marijuana. He is talking about LEGITIMIZING THE POT CULTURE. And Obama obviously fails to realize how much California's medical marijuana law has been abused? What may have been a law passed with the best of intentions has turned into a means for pot heads to obtain and use marijuana withouf fear of retribution.
Many medical experts claim that marijuana diminishes the suffering of glaucoma, cancer and AIDS patients. However, other experts dispute that claim or say that other drugs, legal ones, are readily available to help such patients.
What has happened in California is that thousands of healthy pot heads have taken advantage of the law by coming forward with phony symptoms, so that many doctors, knowingly or unwittingly, are writing scrips to satisfy their patients. The scope of the abuse can be seen in last week's 500 pound seizure from just four Los Angeles pot pharmacies.
I have often said, and continue to say, that marijuana is on of our most dangerous drugs because it is held up as a benign drug comparable to alcohol. But marijuana is the GATEWAY DRUG to the use of heroin, cocaine and meth. When its use becomes prosaic, pot users are likely to turn to those more powerful mind altering substances. That is why I am strongly opposed to any legal use of marijuana.
According to Devlin Barrett, an Associated Press writer, "Experts believe it is already clear the Obama admiinstration will change the strategy, if not the law, on medical marijuana." As in California, when that happens it will open up the flood gates for the nationwide use of marijuana and lead to an eventual increase in the use of heroin, cocaine and meth. That makes me wonder - how much pot did President Obama smoke during his formative years?
Thirteen states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana. California is the only state that allows businesses to dispense marijuana and to advertise their services. Federal law prohibits the possession, distribution or cultivation of marijuana for any reason. The DEA has been raiding California's pot pharmacies ever since they were legalized by state law. Last week DEA agents raided four pot shops in Los Angeles and seized 500 pounds of marijuana.
White House spokesman Nick Shapiro has just released this statement: "The president believes that fderal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind." Shapiro's statement was in keeping with statements Obama made on the campaign trail. In other words, Obama will tell the DEA to BUG OFF!
California's pot heads and pot shop owners must be jumping up and down with joy. Said Mark Kleinman, a UCLA professor and former Justice Department official, "This message is, this is no longer drug warrior time. We are not on a cultural crusade against pot-smoking." Keinman also put it another way: "It is no longer federal policy to beat up on hippies."
Cultural crudade? Beat up on hippies? What a crock of supreme shit! Kleinman's statements clearly show that he is not talking about medical marijuana. He is talking about LEGITIMIZING THE POT CULTURE. And Obama obviously fails to realize how much California's medical marijuana law has been abused? What may have been a law passed with the best of intentions has turned into a means for pot heads to obtain and use marijuana withouf fear of retribution.
Many medical experts claim that marijuana diminishes the suffering of glaucoma, cancer and AIDS patients. However, other experts dispute that claim or say that other drugs, legal ones, are readily available to help such patients.
What has happened in California is that thousands of healthy pot heads have taken advantage of the law by coming forward with phony symptoms, so that many doctors, knowingly or unwittingly, are writing scrips to satisfy their patients. The scope of the abuse can be seen in last week's 500 pound seizure from just four Los Angeles pot pharmacies.
I have often said, and continue to say, that marijuana is on of our most dangerous drugs because it is held up as a benign drug comparable to alcohol. But marijuana is the GATEWAY DRUG to the use of heroin, cocaine and meth. When its use becomes prosaic, pot users are likely to turn to those more powerful mind altering substances. That is why I am strongly opposed to any legal use of marijuana.
According to Devlin Barrett, an Associated Press writer, "Experts believe it is already clear the Obama admiinstration will change the strategy, if not the law, on medical marijuana." As in California, when that happens it will open up the flood gates for the nationwide use of marijuana and lead to an eventual increase in the use of heroin, cocaine and meth. That makes me wonder - how much pot did President Obama smoke during his formative years?
Sunday, February 08, 2009
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
TO ALL ISRAELIS, including those presently in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Florida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Florida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Saturday, February 07, 2009
MISTAKES AND HEROES
Another sports "hero" has fallen off his pedestal. Michael Phelps was pictured smoking pot through a bong on the front page of the British tabloid, News of the World. Or to put it in other words, another role model "gone to pot."
Phelps, who received world-wide acclaim for winning a record eight gold medals in swimming at the Beijing olympics, has received millions of dollars in commercial endorsements for his unprecedented feat. So far, only cereal maker Kellogg has announced it will not renew its lucrative sponsorship contract with the pot smoking role model. It is possible that other sponsors may follow suit.
To his credit, Phelps immediately 'fessed up' to his transgression. Unlike Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both of whom appear to have lied when they denied ever using any steroids and human growth hormones, Phelps publicly admitted his "mistake" and apologized to his fans.
This brings me to comment on a couple of frequently misused words - mistakes and heroes. Does one make a mistake when he intentionally commits a wrongful act. Not to my way of thinking! A mistake is when you add three and three and come up with five. A mistake is when you're driving and turn right instead of left. A mistake is when you overcook the Thanksgiving Day turkey.
The illegal use of steroids and growth hormones is not a mistake. It's a crime. Thefts, fraud, assaults, rapes and smoking pot are not mistakes. They're all crimes. So, when Phelps and other wrongdoers admit to making a mistake, are they really confessing to breaking the law, or do they mean getting caught was the mistake they made?
Hero! It sickens me to see how often the word is misused. Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Muhammed Ali (who refused to serve his country when he was drafted during the Vietnam War), Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and a legion of other star athletes are not heroes. They're outstanding sports figures. They're stars and entertainers, but not heroes. They may well be role models. But no matter how outstanding, they have not earned the honor of being called a hero.
A hero is someone who risks his own life trying to save the life of another person or risks his life on behalf of his country. Our front-line troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are heroes. A firefighter rushing into a burning building is a hero. A cop facing down a dangerous criminal is a hero. And so is someone who crawls out on a frozen pond in an attempt to save the life of an animal that has broken through the ice. These true heroes deserve far more recognition than a bunch of star athletes with inflated egos.
Take O.J. Simpson. Like most other athletes, he never ever did anything even remotely heroic. He never risked his life to save someone else's. He never served a day in the military, nor a day as a firefighter or police officer. Yet Simpson was worshipped as a hero by millions of American football fans for running over and around opposing players. And though he fell from his pedestal when he was arrested for murdering his ex-wife and Ron Goldman, his die-hard fans continue to consider O.J. a hero. What an awful misuse of the word!
On the other hand there was Pat Tillman. He gave up a solid pro football career to serve his country by enlisting in the army after 9/11. Tillma was killed in action while serving on the front lines in Afghanistan. Now there is a true hero! His heroism had absolutely nothing to do with sports. By his sacrifice, Tillman has exposed all those other star athletes as fake heroes.
Phelps, who received world-wide acclaim for winning a record eight gold medals in swimming at the Beijing olympics, has received millions of dollars in commercial endorsements for his unprecedented feat. So far, only cereal maker Kellogg has announced it will not renew its lucrative sponsorship contract with the pot smoking role model. It is possible that other sponsors may follow suit.
To his credit, Phelps immediately 'fessed up' to his transgression. Unlike Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both of whom appear to have lied when they denied ever using any steroids and human growth hormones, Phelps publicly admitted his "mistake" and apologized to his fans.
This brings me to comment on a couple of frequently misused words - mistakes and heroes. Does one make a mistake when he intentionally commits a wrongful act. Not to my way of thinking! A mistake is when you add three and three and come up with five. A mistake is when you're driving and turn right instead of left. A mistake is when you overcook the Thanksgiving Day turkey.
The illegal use of steroids and growth hormones is not a mistake. It's a crime. Thefts, fraud, assaults, rapes and smoking pot are not mistakes. They're all crimes. So, when Phelps and other wrongdoers admit to making a mistake, are they really confessing to breaking the law, or do they mean getting caught was the mistake they made?
Hero! It sickens me to see how often the word is misused. Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan, Muhammed Ali (who refused to serve his country when he was drafted during the Vietnam War), Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and a legion of other star athletes are not heroes. They're outstanding sports figures. They're stars and entertainers, but not heroes. They may well be role models. But no matter how outstanding, they have not earned the honor of being called a hero.
A hero is someone who risks his own life trying to save the life of another person or risks his life on behalf of his country. Our front-line troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are heroes. A firefighter rushing into a burning building is a hero. A cop facing down a dangerous criminal is a hero. And so is someone who crawls out on a frozen pond in an attempt to save the life of an animal that has broken through the ice. These true heroes deserve far more recognition than a bunch of star athletes with inflated egos.
Take O.J. Simpson. Like most other athletes, he never ever did anything even remotely heroic. He never risked his life to save someone else's. He never served a day in the military, nor a day as a firefighter or police officer. Yet Simpson was worshipped as a hero by millions of American football fans for running over and around opposing players. And though he fell from his pedestal when he was arrested for murdering his ex-wife and Ron Goldman, his die-hard fans continue to consider O.J. a hero. What an awful misuse of the word!
On the other hand there was Pat Tillman. He gave up a solid pro football career to serve his country by enlisting in the army after 9/11. Tillma was killed in action while serving on the front lines in Afghanistan. Now there is a true hero! His heroism had absolutely nothing to do with sports. By his sacrifice, Tillman has exposed all those other star athletes as fake heroes.
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
TO ALL ISRAELIS, including those presently in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Friday, February 06, 2009
BAILOUT PLAN EXPLAINED BY MONKEY BUSINESS
If you are confused by how the Wall Street Bailout Plan works, here is an explanation that was recently sent to me:
MONKEY BUSINESS
Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, knowing there were many monkeys, went to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.
He then announced that he would buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the villagers efforts and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf.
The assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that my boss has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when my boss returns, you can sell them to him for $50."
The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.
They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!
Now you have a better understanding of how the WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WORKS !!! It doesn't get much clearer than this........
MONKEY BUSINESS
Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, knowing there were many monkeys, went to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.
He then announced that he would buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the villagers efforts and they started catching monkeys again.
Soon the supply diminished and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf.
The assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that my boss has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when my boss returns, you can sell them to him for $50."
The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.
They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!
Now you have a better understanding of how the WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WORKS !!! It doesn't get much clearer than this........
CONVICTED BY JUNK SCIENCE EVIDENCE AND SCIENCE FICTION TESTIMONY?
The National Academy of Sciences, a very prestigious gourp, is set to release a report this month on the use of scientific evidence by law enforcement. What the report boils down to is that evidence on fingerprinting, firearms identification, analysis of bite marks, blood splatter, hair, handwriting, etc. has been developed by "shoddy practices" and that "such analyses are often handled by poorly trained technicians who then exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court."
This report is an indictment of the nation's crime labs, including the highly regarded FBI lab. It is predicted that defense attorneys will use the report in court to discredit "scientific" evidence and that there will be an avalanche of appeals claiming that defendants were convicted of crimes by junk science evidence and science fiction testimony. Attorneys defending Casey Anthony for the murder of her 2-year-od daughter Caylee have already stated they will use the Academy's report to discredit evidence from the trunk of her car - the detection of chloroform, the odor of human decomposition, hair and a stain said to belong to Caylee.
Here is the story as reported yesterday in The New York Times:
Science Found Wanting in Nation's Crime Labs
By SOLOMON MOORE
Forensic evidence that has helped convict thousands of defendants for nearly a century is often the product of shoddy scientific practices that should be upgraded and standardized, according to accounts of a draft report by the nation’s pre-eminent scientific research group.
The report by the National Academy of Sciences is to be released this month. People who have seen it say it is a sweeping critique of many forensic methods that the police and prosecutors rely on, including fingerprinting, firearms identification and analysis of bite marks, blood splatter, hair and handwriting.
The report says such analyses are often handled by poorly trained technicians who then exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court. It concludes that Congress should create a federal agency to guarantee the independence of the field, which has been dominated by law enforcement agencies, say forensic professionals, scholars and scientists who have seen review copies of the study. Early reviewers said the report was still subject to change.
The result of a two-year review, the report follows a series of widely publicized crime laboratory failures, including the case of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer from Portland, Ore., and Muslim convert who was wrongly arrested in the 2004 terrorist train bombing in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000.
American examiners matched Mr. Mayfield’s fingerprint to those found at the scene, although Spanish authorities eventually convinced the Federal Bureau of Investigation that its fingerprint identification methods were faulty. Mr. Mayfield was released, and the federal government settled with him for $2 million.
In 2005, Congress asked the National Academy to assess the state of the forensic techniques used in court proceedings. The report’s findings are not binding, but they are expected to be highly influential.
"This is not a judicial ruling; it is not a law," said Michael J. Saks, a psychology and law professor at Arizona State University who presented fundamental weaknesses in forensic evidence to the academy. "But it will be used by others who will make law or will argue cases."
Legal experts expect that the report will give ammunition to defense lawyers seeking to discredit forensic procedures and expert witnesses in court. Lawyers could also use the findings in their attempts to overturn convictions based on spurious evidence. Judges are likely to use the findings to raise the bar for admissibility of certain types of forensic evidence and to rein in exaggerated expert testimony.
The report may also drive federal legislation if Congress adopts its recommendations. Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who has pushed for forensic reform, said, "My hope is that this report will provide an objective and unbiased perspective of the critical needs of our crime labs."
Forensics, which developed within law enforcement institutions — and have been mythologized on television shows from "Quincy, M.E." to "CSI: Miami" — suffers from a lack of independence, the report found.
The report’s most controversial recommendation is the establishment of a federal agency to finance research and training and promote universal standards in forensic science, a discipline that spans anthropology, biology, chemistry, physics, medicine and law. The report also calls for tougher regulation of crime laboratories.
In an effort to mitigate law enforcement opposition to the report, which has already delayed its publication, the draft focuses on scientific shortcomings and policy changes that could improve forensics. It is largely silent on strictly legal issues to avoid overstepping its bounds.
Perhaps the most powerful example of the National Academy’s prior influence on forensic science was a 2004 report discrediting the F.B.I. technique of matching the chemical signatures of lead in bullets at a crime scene to similar bullets possessed by a suspect. As a result, the agency had to notify hundreds of people who potentially had been wrongfully convicted.
In its current draft report, the National Academy wrote that the field suffered from a reliance on outmoded and untested theories by analysts who often have no background in science, statistics or other empirical disciplines.
Although it is not subject to significant criticism in the report, the advent of DNA profiling clearly set the agenda. DNA evidence is presented in less than 10 percent of all violent crimes but has revolutionized the entire science of forensics. While DNA testing has helped to free more than 200 wrongfully convicted people, "DNA was a shock to police culture and created an alternative scientific model, which promoted standardization, transparency and a higher level of precision," said Paul Giannelli, a forensic science expert at Case Western Reserve University School of Law who presented his research to the National Academy. Enforcement officials, Mr. Giannelli said, "chose to say they never make mistakes, but they have little scientific support, and this report could blow them out of the water."
Peter J. Neufeld, a co-director of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that uses DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, presented to the academy a study of trial transcripts of 137 convictions that were overturned by DNA evidence and found that 60 percent included false or misleading statements regarding blood, hair, bite mark, shoe print, soil, fiber and fingerprint analyses.
The courts have long struggled with the proper role of scientific evidence. In a 1993 landmark decision, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the Supreme Court held that scientific testimony had to meet an objective standard. Federal courts have occasionally excluded evidence like handwriting and hair analysis.
Donald Kennedy, a Stanford scientist who helped select the report’s authors, said federal law enforcement agencies resented "intervention" of mainstream science — especially the National Academy — in the courts.
He said the National Institute of Justice, a research arm of the Justice Department, tried to derail the forensic study by refusing to finance it and demanding to review the findings before publication. A bipartisan vote in Congress in 2005 broke the impasse with a $1.5 million appropriation.
Mr. Shelby also accused the National Institute of Justice of trying to infiltrate the forensic study panel with lobbyists for private DNA analysis companies, who were seeking to limit the research to DNA studies.
The National Institute of Justice said it would not comment until the report was released. But a preview of potential turf wars played out in the presentations to the National Academy in December 2007. A forensic expert from the Secret Service blasted the F.B.I. for developing questionable techniques "on an ad-hoc basis, without proper research."
He said the Secret Service wanted the National Academy "to send a message to the entire forensic science community that this type of method development is not acceptable practice."
Everyone interviewed for this article agreed that the report would be a force of change in the forensics field.
One person who has reviewed the draft and who asked not to be identified because of promises to keep the contents confidential said: "I’m sure that every defense attorney in the country is waiting for this report to come out. There are going to be challenges to fingerprints and firearms evidence and the general lack of empirical grounding. It’s going to be big."
This report is an indictment of the nation's crime labs, including the highly regarded FBI lab. It is predicted that defense attorneys will use the report in court to discredit "scientific" evidence and that there will be an avalanche of appeals claiming that defendants were convicted of crimes by junk science evidence and science fiction testimony. Attorneys defending Casey Anthony for the murder of her 2-year-od daughter Caylee have already stated they will use the Academy's report to discredit evidence from the trunk of her car - the detection of chloroform, the odor of human decomposition, hair and a stain said to belong to Caylee.
Here is the story as reported yesterday in The New York Times:
Science Found Wanting in Nation's Crime Labs
By SOLOMON MOORE
Forensic evidence that has helped convict thousands of defendants for nearly a century is often the product of shoddy scientific practices that should be upgraded and standardized, according to accounts of a draft report by the nation’s pre-eminent scientific research group.
The report by the National Academy of Sciences is to be released this month. People who have seen it say it is a sweeping critique of many forensic methods that the police and prosecutors rely on, including fingerprinting, firearms identification and analysis of bite marks, blood splatter, hair and handwriting.
The report says such analyses are often handled by poorly trained technicians who then exaggerate the accuracy of their methods in court. It concludes that Congress should create a federal agency to guarantee the independence of the field, which has been dominated by law enforcement agencies, say forensic professionals, scholars and scientists who have seen review copies of the study. Early reviewers said the report was still subject to change.
The result of a two-year review, the report follows a series of widely publicized crime laboratory failures, including the case of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer from Portland, Ore., and Muslim convert who was wrongly arrested in the 2004 terrorist train bombing in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded 2,000.
American examiners matched Mr. Mayfield’s fingerprint to those found at the scene, although Spanish authorities eventually convinced the Federal Bureau of Investigation that its fingerprint identification methods were faulty. Mr. Mayfield was released, and the federal government settled with him for $2 million.
In 2005, Congress asked the National Academy to assess the state of the forensic techniques used in court proceedings. The report’s findings are not binding, but they are expected to be highly influential.
"This is not a judicial ruling; it is not a law," said Michael J. Saks, a psychology and law professor at Arizona State University who presented fundamental weaknesses in forensic evidence to the academy. "But it will be used by others who will make law or will argue cases."
Legal experts expect that the report will give ammunition to defense lawyers seeking to discredit forensic procedures and expert witnesses in court. Lawyers could also use the findings in their attempts to overturn convictions based on spurious evidence. Judges are likely to use the findings to raise the bar for admissibility of certain types of forensic evidence and to rein in exaggerated expert testimony.
The report may also drive federal legislation if Congress adopts its recommendations. Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who has pushed for forensic reform, said, "My hope is that this report will provide an objective and unbiased perspective of the critical needs of our crime labs."
Forensics, which developed within law enforcement institutions — and have been mythologized on television shows from "Quincy, M.E." to "CSI: Miami" — suffers from a lack of independence, the report found.
The report’s most controversial recommendation is the establishment of a federal agency to finance research and training and promote universal standards in forensic science, a discipline that spans anthropology, biology, chemistry, physics, medicine and law. The report also calls for tougher regulation of crime laboratories.
In an effort to mitigate law enforcement opposition to the report, which has already delayed its publication, the draft focuses on scientific shortcomings and policy changes that could improve forensics. It is largely silent on strictly legal issues to avoid overstepping its bounds.
Perhaps the most powerful example of the National Academy’s prior influence on forensic science was a 2004 report discrediting the F.B.I. technique of matching the chemical signatures of lead in bullets at a crime scene to similar bullets possessed by a suspect. As a result, the agency had to notify hundreds of people who potentially had been wrongfully convicted.
In its current draft report, the National Academy wrote that the field suffered from a reliance on outmoded and untested theories by analysts who often have no background in science, statistics or other empirical disciplines.
Although it is not subject to significant criticism in the report, the advent of DNA profiling clearly set the agenda. DNA evidence is presented in less than 10 percent of all violent crimes but has revolutionized the entire science of forensics. While DNA testing has helped to free more than 200 wrongfully convicted people, "DNA was a shock to police culture and created an alternative scientific model, which promoted standardization, transparency and a higher level of precision," said Paul Giannelli, a forensic science expert at Case Western Reserve University School of Law who presented his research to the National Academy. Enforcement officials, Mr. Giannelli said, "chose to say they never make mistakes, but they have little scientific support, and this report could blow them out of the water."
Peter J. Neufeld, a co-director of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that uses DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, presented to the academy a study of trial transcripts of 137 convictions that were overturned by DNA evidence and found that 60 percent included false or misleading statements regarding blood, hair, bite mark, shoe print, soil, fiber and fingerprint analyses.
The courts have long struggled with the proper role of scientific evidence. In a 1993 landmark decision, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, the Supreme Court held that scientific testimony had to meet an objective standard. Federal courts have occasionally excluded evidence like handwriting and hair analysis.
Donald Kennedy, a Stanford scientist who helped select the report’s authors, said federal law enforcement agencies resented "intervention" of mainstream science — especially the National Academy — in the courts.
He said the National Institute of Justice, a research arm of the Justice Department, tried to derail the forensic study by refusing to finance it and demanding to review the findings before publication. A bipartisan vote in Congress in 2005 broke the impasse with a $1.5 million appropriation.
Mr. Shelby also accused the National Institute of Justice of trying to infiltrate the forensic study panel with lobbyists for private DNA analysis companies, who were seeking to limit the research to DNA studies.
The National Institute of Justice said it would not comment until the report was released. But a preview of potential turf wars played out in the presentations to the National Academy in December 2007. A forensic expert from the Secret Service blasted the F.B.I. for developing questionable techniques "on an ad-hoc basis, without proper research."
He said the Secret Service wanted the National Academy "to send a message to the entire forensic science community that this type of method development is not acceptable practice."
Everyone interviewed for this article agreed that the report would be a force of change in the forensics field.
One person who has reviewed the draft and who asked not to be identified because of promises to keep the contents confidential said: "I’m sure that every defense attorney in the country is waiting for this report to come out. There are going to be challenges to fingerprints and firearms evidence and the general lack of empirical grounding. It’s going to be big."
RESPONSE TO BUCHANAN'S DEFENSE OF WHITE AMERICA
I have a leftie pal who has a very different take on Pat Buchanan's defense of white America which I posted on my blog yesterday. In fairness to all concerned, here is his response:
I read your introduction and Buchanan's piece is still unmitigated bullshit. As you point out, blacks were and to some degree still are getting the short end of the stick, but Buchanan, like so many of his ilk, chooses to use numbers in a way that is crap.
Of course blacks steal from whites more than blacks. Remember Willie Horton's answer to why he robbed banks (that's where the money is) so it makes sense.
Yes, the older generation of Jackson and Sharpton have worn out their welcomes, but so far as gratitude goes what are blacks supposed to say; "Thank you master for letting us off the farm and lives as share croppers, and out of second or third rate schools, and keeping us out of unions where the pay rate is better than doing pick up work?"
The problem here is that Buchanan is the last of the racists left over from the administration of a president (Nixon) who resigned rather than face the music. People like that should not be provided a platform to spread their hate, no matter how many kernels of truth they may plant in their rants.
I read your introduction and Buchanan's piece is still unmitigated bullshit. As you point out, blacks were and to some degree still are getting the short end of the stick, but Buchanan, like so many of his ilk, chooses to use numbers in a way that is crap.
Of course blacks steal from whites more than blacks. Remember Willie Horton's answer to why he robbed banks (that's where the money is) so it makes sense.
Yes, the older generation of Jackson and Sharpton have worn out their welcomes, but so far as gratitude goes what are blacks supposed to say; "Thank you master for letting us off the farm and lives as share croppers, and out of second or third rate schools, and keeping us out of unions where the pay rate is better than doing pick up work?"
The problem here is that Buchanan is the last of the racists left over from the administration of a president (Nixon) who resigned rather than face the music. People like that should not be provided a platform to spread their hate, no matter how many kernels of truth they may plant in their rants.
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
To all Israelis, including those presently in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Thursday, February 05, 2009
BUCHANAN DEFENDS WHITE AMERICA
Pat Buchanan, the conservative columnist who was President Nixon's speech writer, is most definitely not one of my favorite political columnists. Once in a while though he does write something worth considereing by all of us. Last March, Buchanan wrote a column about Obama's race speech, the one he gave after Jeremiah Wright, his pastor and mentor, had given his "God Damn America" tirade of a sermon. Buchanan's column was widely criticized as a racist diatribe.
Today, a friend sent me another Buchanan column which contains some of the same material from his previous column and which will undoubtably be subjected to the same racist allegations. Actually this "new" column was published on August 6, 2008 by Stand Up America.
I will be the first to admit that over the years blacks have had good cause to be unhappy with white Aneruca, Forget about slavery - that was abolished by Lincoln's Emanciapation Proclamation. Once freed, blacks were denied even the semblance of equality in our predominantly white society. The southern Jim Crowe laws were a travesty that continued well past the mid-nineties. Denied a quality public school education, blacks were doomed to live in poverty.
By the late-nineties many blacks had achieved entry into the middle-class. But some civil rights leaders, notably Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have perpetuated a perception of black victimology which fed on white guilt and has actually worked to the detriment of black Americans. Had blacks stopped blaming whites for all their problems, they might well have come along a lot further. How much longer are whites expected to keep paying for the old racism and discrimination?
Because much of what he writes about in the new column has a definite ring of truth to it, I have chosen to reproduce Buchanan's column from Stand Up America.
BUCHANAN TO OBAMA
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids. Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.
Be a better friend,
Patrick J. Buchanan
Today, a friend sent me another Buchanan column which contains some of the same material from his previous column and which will undoubtably be subjected to the same racist allegations. Actually this "new" column was published on August 6, 2008 by Stand Up America.
I will be the first to admit that over the years blacks have had good cause to be unhappy with white Aneruca, Forget about slavery - that was abolished by Lincoln's Emanciapation Proclamation. Once freed, blacks were denied even the semblance of equality in our predominantly white society. The southern Jim Crowe laws were a travesty that continued well past the mid-nineties. Denied a quality public school education, blacks were doomed to live in poverty.
By the late-nineties many blacks had achieved entry into the middle-class. But some civil rights leaders, notably Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, have perpetuated a perception of black victimology which fed on white guilt and has actually worked to the detriment of black Americans. Had blacks stopped blaming whites for all their problems, they might well have come along a lot further. How much longer are whites expected to keep paying for the old racism and discrimination?
Because much of what he writes about in the new column has a definite ring of truth to it, I have chosen to reproduce Buchanan's column from Stand Up America.
BUCHANAN TO OBAMA
by Patrick J. Buchanan
Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America . Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ' 60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream. Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants. Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated their time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude??
Barack talks about new 'ladders of opportunity' for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for 'deserving' white kids. Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America's fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?
Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?
As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?
Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?
We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena . And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.
Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.
Be a better friend,
Patrick J. Buchanan
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
EDUCATION IS THE DIFFERENCE
Dr Farrukh Saleem is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist who has written an article entitled, "Why are Jews so powerful?" He starts out by writing, "There are only 14 million Jews in the world - seven million in the Americas , five million in Asia, two million in Europe and 100,000 in Africa . For every single Jew in the world there are 100 Muslims. Yet, Jews are more than a hundred times more powerful than all the Muslims put together. Ever wondered why?" He added, "Over the past 105 years, 14 million Jews have won 15-dozen (180) Nobel Prizes while only three Nobel Prizes have been won by 1.4 billion Muslims (other than peace prizes)."
Saleem, a Muslim, then went on to list the names of more than 70 Jews acknowledged for outstanding achievements in science, medicine, finance, government, technology and philanthrophy among other fields. I am not going to bore you by reproducing that rather extensive part of his article. Here, however, is the rest of it:
So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education.
Why are Muslims so powerless? There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are over one hundred Muslims. Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.
As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million). Further, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.
Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.
Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan , there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.
Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.
Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan 's export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent while Singapore is at 58 per cent.
Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't producing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't diffusing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't applying knowledge.
And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.
Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion. America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).
Oil rich Saudi Arabia , UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion. (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).
So, why are Muslims so powerless? Answer: Lack of education.
All we do is shout to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Because of this article, it would not be at all surprising to have some Muslim clerics issue a Fatwa calling for the death of Farrukh Saleem.)
Saleem, a Muslim, then went on to list the names of more than 70 Jews acknowledged for outstanding achievements in science, medicine, finance, government, technology and philanthrophy among other fields. I am not going to bore you by reproducing that rather extensive part of his article. Here, however, is the rest of it:
So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education.
Why are Muslims so powerless? There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas . Every fifth human being is a Muslim; for every single Hindu there are two Muslims, for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and for every Jew there are over one hundred Muslims. Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?
Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims. The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407. In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.
As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent. A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent. Some 98 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
Around 40 per cent of the 'literates' in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the 'literates' in the Muslim world did the same.
Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The US has 4,000 scientists per million and Japan has 5,000 per million. In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million). Further, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.
Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge.
Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society. In Pakistan , there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK , the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.
Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.
Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application. Pakistan 's export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent. The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent; Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent while Singapore is at 58 per cent.
Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't producing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't diffusing knowledge.
Why are Muslims powerless? Because we aren't applying knowledge.
And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.
Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion. America , just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion; China $8 trillion, Japan $3.8 trillion and Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).
Oil rich Saudi Arabia , UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion; Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion, Catholic Poland $489 billion and Buddhist Thailand $545 billion. (Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining).
So, why are Muslims so powerless? Answer: Lack of education.
All we do is shout to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Because of this article, it would not be at all surprising to have some Muslim clerics issue a Fatwa calling for the death of Farrukh Saleem.)
OBAMA IS REACHING OUT TO THE MUSLIM WORLD
Brett Ratner, a trustee of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, received an alarming letter from a friend which is evidence of an Islamic tsunami sweeping across Europe. With Islam already firmly rooted in large parts of Africa and Asia, a wave of immigration from Muslim countries has been changing the face of France, England, Germany and other European nations.
The surge of Islamists comes to light every time there is a flareup in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Huge demonstrations and numerous violent acts against Jews and Jewish institutions occurred during the Second Intifada and are now taking place all over Europe because of Israel's attack on Gaza. Even during periods of calm, these religious zealots have been imposing their ideology on public schools and European culture.
In the United States we can be thankful that we do not have a Muslim immigration problem. The Latinos from Mexico and Central America come here only to better their lives and those of the families they've left behind in Latin America. Unlike the Muslims in Europe, they do not try to impose any ideology or religious practices on the rest of us.
Ratner wrote, "I feel compelled to share with you a shocking and radically disturbing correspondence I have just received from a well known and well respected journalist friend from Paris. My friend wishes to remain anonymous because of fear for her job and the well being, safety and even life of herself and her family. Why these mortifying circumstances should be true will become obvious as you read her chilling words."
President Obama made it clear in his innaugural speech and in his television interview with Al Arabiya that his administration will be reaching out to the Muslim world which he sees as "filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives" while practicing a peaceful religion. After you read this letter, you might ask yourself - WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD OBAMA WANT TO REACH OUT TO THESE HATE-FILLED PEOPLE?
Dear Brett,
I am sending you this e-mail regarding the situation in France concerning the Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip. I doubt I will tell you something that you already don't know, but still, things look pretty grim right now. We already reached an all time low in this country during the second Intifada. The phenomenon which appeared during that time, especially in the high schools located in the Parisian suburbs, where the majority of the students are Muslim, has not disappeared.
To summarize in a few words a very complicated and painful situation, it is impossible for an individual, whether a student or a teacher, to say that you are a Jew. If you say so, you'll end in a hospital. Don't show any hostility to Al-Qaeda, or Hamas, you'll be exposed to the same kind of violence. You can also talk to some of these kids, they're open to discussion. Many of them dream to become a martyr and blow up themselves. It's after all understandable, that's what they hear in their mosque.
The situation right now is much worse. And it's only the beginning. We had demonstrations every Saturday in every big city in France, and also smaller cities, against the Israeli bombings in Gaza. There's nothing wrong with that per se. We live in a democracy after all. These demonstrations have a different flavor. The 20.000 people demonstrating in Paris were not in the streets to claim peace but to shout that Israel should be destroyed. Israeli flags were burned, the support was for Hamas, not Fatah (as you know, this organization has betrayed his own people), and you could see giant pictures of Nasrallah. One of the sentences you could hear, repeatedly, was "Death to the Jews and the Zionists". This was going on in Paris among other places. Two weeks ago the demonstrators stopped Place de l'Opera, shouted Allah is great and prayed [to] Allah. This is a fact, not bad science-fiction. In Mulhouse, the demonstrators wanted to end the day at the synagogue, and destroy it. The police prevented it.
It's a pretty bad time right now to pray in a synagogue in the eastern part of France – bombs are being thrown once in a while, let's say once a week – or in a Parisian suburb.
Now, who are these people? Where do these demonstrators come from? You have the usual suspects like the Communist party, the various Trotskyites parties, members of the National Front, people known to be close to revisionists groups and, mainly, ordinary people, from North Africa who suddenly claim that Allah, Hamas and the destruction of Israel matter more than their French citizenship. What we saw in the past three weeks were the first massive Islamic demonstrations in France. And they're not going to disappear like that. A peace agreement in the Middle-East won't make things disappear.
Just this week-end, a famous French stand-up comedian called Arthur could not perform in a French city. There too many demonstrators outside the concert hall, the police could not manage security inside the building. Now, who is Arthur? A Zionist loony? Someone who said death to all Palestinians? Arthur did not even give his advice about what's going on in the Middle-East. He's just a Jew. Obviously a crime nowadays.
I sometimes wonder how people are going to react to this situation. Not Jewish people. For them, we already know. But let's say my colleagues at (media outlet deleted), in the place known to be one of the center of the so called French elite.
A few of them don't enjoy these demonstrations. Only a few of them. The vast majority doesn't understand the danger Israel is facing with Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. They don't understand the danger our country is facing with a growing minority who believe that the law of the French republic matters less than the Islamic law. It is a problem, a huge one.
Sincerely yours,
/Name Withheld/
The surge of Islamists comes to light every time there is a flareup in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Huge demonstrations and numerous violent acts against Jews and Jewish institutions occurred during the Second Intifada and are now taking place all over Europe because of Israel's attack on Gaza. Even during periods of calm, these religious zealots have been imposing their ideology on public schools and European culture.
In the United States we can be thankful that we do not have a Muslim immigration problem. The Latinos from Mexico and Central America come here only to better their lives and those of the families they've left behind in Latin America. Unlike the Muslims in Europe, they do not try to impose any ideology or religious practices on the rest of us.
Ratner wrote, "I feel compelled to share with you a shocking and radically disturbing correspondence I have just received from a well known and well respected journalist friend from Paris. My friend wishes to remain anonymous because of fear for her job and the well being, safety and even life of herself and her family. Why these mortifying circumstances should be true will become obvious as you read her chilling words."
President Obama made it clear in his innaugural speech and in his television interview with Al Arabiya that his administration will be reaching out to the Muslim world which he sees as "filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives" while practicing a peaceful religion. After you read this letter, you might ask yourself - WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD OBAMA WANT TO REACH OUT TO THESE HATE-FILLED PEOPLE?
Dear Brett,
I am sending you this e-mail regarding the situation in France concerning the Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip. I doubt I will tell you something that you already don't know, but still, things look pretty grim right now. We already reached an all time low in this country during the second Intifada. The phenomenon which appeared during that time, especially in the high schools located in the Parisian suburbs, where the majority of the students are Muslim, has not disappeared.
To summarize in a few words a very complicated and painful situation, it is impossible for an individual, whether a student or a teacher, to say that you are a Jew. If you say so, you'll end in a hospital. Don't show any hostility to Al-Qaeda, or Hamas, you'll be exposed to the same kind of violence. You can also talk to some of these kids, they're open to discussion. Many of them dream to become a martyr and blow up themselves. It's after all understandable, that's what they hear in their mosque.
The situation right now is much worse. And it's only the beginning. We had demonstrations every Saturday in every big city in France, and also smaller cities, against the Israeli bombings in Gaza. There's nothing wrong with that per se. We live in a democracy after all. These demonstrations have a different flavor. The 20.000 people demonstrating in Paris were not in the streets to claim peace but to shout that Israel should be destroyed. Israeli flags were burned, the support was for Hamas, not Fatah (as you know, this organization has betrayed his own people), and you could see giant pictures of Nasrallah. One of the sentences you could hear, repeatedly, was "Death to the Jews and the Zionists". This was going on in Paris among other places. Two weeks ago the demonstrators stopped Place de l'Opera, shouted Allah is great and prayed [to] Allah. This is a fact, not bad science-fiction. In Mulhouse, the demonstrators wanted to end the day at the synagogue, and destroy it. The police prevented it.
It's a pretty bad time right now to pray in a synagogue in the eastern part of France – bombs are being thrown once in a while, let's say once a week – or in a Parisian suburb.
Now, who are these people? Where do these demonstrators come from? You have the usual suspects like the Communist party, the various Trotskyites parties, members of the National Front, people known to be close to revisionists groups and, mainly, ordinary people, from North Africa who suddenly claim that Allah, Hamas and the destruction of Israel matter more than their French citizenship. What we saw in the past three weeks were the first massive Islamic demonstrations in France. And they're not going to disappear like that. A peace agreement in the Middle-East won't make things disappear.
Just this week-end, a famous French stand-up comedian called Arthur could not perform in a French city. There too many demonstrators outside the concert hall, the police could not manage security inside the building. Now, who is Arthur? A Zionist loony? Someone who said death to all Palestinians? Arthur did not even give his advice about what's going on in the Middle-East. He's just a Jew. Obviously a crime nowadays.
I sometimes wonder how people are going to react to this situation. Not Jewish people. For them, we already know. But let's say my colleagues at (media outlet deleted), in the place known to be one of the center of the so called French elite.
A few of them don't enjoy these demonstrations. Only a few of them. The vast majority doesn't understand the danger Israel is facing with Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. They don't understand the danger our country is facing with a growing minority who believe that the law of the French republic matters less than the Islamic law. It is a problem, a huge one.
Sincerely yours,
/Name Withheld/
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
To all Israelis, including those presently in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
A SAD COMMENTARY FROM DANNY PEARL'S FATHER
In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, an op-ed piece entitled "Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil: When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?" was a sad commentary on the attitudes of Jimmy Carter, Bill Moyers and their ilk in the media and in the academic community. It was written by Judea Pearl, the father of slain journalist Danny Pearl. Judea Pearl is a professor of cumputer science at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which he founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.
Here is Professor Pearl's op-ed piece from The Wall Street Journal:
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?
The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny's murder would be a turning point in the history of man's inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism -- the ideological license to elevate one's grievances above the norms of civilized society -- was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable "tactical" considerations.
This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man's second nature. "In an unfair balance, that's what people use," explained Mr. Livingstone.
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.
Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
Here is Professor Pearl's op-ed piece from The Wall Street Journal:
This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?
The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.
Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.
No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny's murder would be a turning point in the history of man's inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.
But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.
I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism -- the ideological license to elevate one's grievances above the norms of civilized society -- was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable "tactical" considerations.
This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man's second nature. "In an unfair balance, that's what people use," explained Mr. Livingstone.
But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.
Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.
Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.
Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
To all Israelis, including those presently in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
In California last month, "moderate" Palestinian demonstrators carried Arabic signs which read, "Slaughter The Jews," "Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs," "With Our Soul, With Our Blood,We Will Cleanse You Oh Palestine," and "Death To The Jews." In Ohio they chanted, "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea." And in Flrorida, "moderate" Palestinians kept shouting, "Gas the Jews" and "Go back to the ovens."
So, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel by voting for the LIKUD party candidates!
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Monday, February 02, 2009
THE MIDDLE EAST
I just received this parody on the NCAA's Big 12 Conference and think it's clever and worth putting in this blog.
If The Big 12 Was In The Middle East...........
KANSAS: Saudi Arabia. Not altogether a bad place; has had historical success in oil and basketball, and continues to be a world leader in those areas. However, parts of the ruling family tends to thrive on its excess, much to its detriment; a certain prince's fondness for American culture (especially for its sweet baked goods) could very well lead to its downfall.
KANSAS STATE: Armenia. No one wants to be here, especially the Armenians. What's more, nobody really knows where it is. First came to prominence just a decade ago, and nobody can really remember it existing as an independent nation before that. Primary exports: Corn, junior college transfers.
NEBRASKA: Egypt. Was once a great power; its history, through the ages, is matched by few. Has languished in recent years, failing to recognize its new place in the world order as a follower, and not the leader it once was. Its people tend to be the friendliest to its neighbors, though still harboring a long simmering, yet contained, hatred for Israel.
COLORADO: United Arab Emirates. An incredibly refined populace-- probably because it's impossible to make it your home unless you're incredibly wealthy. Does its best to compete with its neighbors, but has resigned itself to being the playground of the region, instead of one of its traditional powers. Doesn't have a baseball team.
IOWA STATE: Afghanistan. There's really no reason that this nation should even exist, and if it weren't for previous colonial empires, it probably wouldn't. Easily overlooked over the last 300 years, its people are a ramshackle alliance of groups that don't belong anywhere else. Wishes to God, Allah, and whoever else that it would either cease to exist, or be swallowed up by Pakistan to the south, or the University of Iowa to the west.
MISSOURI: Turkey. Still trying to figure out how it got mixed up in this region, anyway. They're a member of NATO. Shouldn't they be in the Big Ten?
OKLAHOMA STATE: Syria. Nobody pays attention to them until they start mouthing off to the other nations around it. Will occasionally attack its neighbors, with varying success, with most of its successes coming in areas that others couldn't care less about, like wrestling.
TEXAS TECH: Iran. Really, REALLY wants to be noticed in the international community. Will go so far as to fake the development of nuclear weapons, or choose homicidal, maniacal, self-aggrandizing men as their president/basketball coach, just to get noticed. Incredibly eccentric as a nation. Has a deep-seated hatred of both Israel and Iraq--and a huge inferiority complex to go along with it. Very arid, dry climate featuring frequent windstorms.
BAYLOR: Lebanon. Everything they do is just a cluster, and no matter what they do, nothing ever seems to get better. Every once in awhile, it'll nip at the ankles of one of the larger nations, and piss those other nations off just enough to where they're smacked down and consequently can't achieve anything noteworthy for the next ten years.
OKLAHOMA: Iraq. Lies, cheats, and steals to get its way in the international community. If caught doing something wrong, or illegal, its excuse is that "everybody else has done it, we just get caught." No one wants to live here, but everybody that does wishes they could move away. Recently has undergone minor restructuring due to numerous ethics violations.
TEXAS: Israel. Pretty much everyone else in the region hates them. Can destroy lesser countries at will using incredibly advanced tactics. Not relegated to the stone-age lifestyle of many of its neighboring nations. Home of God's chosen people.
TEXAS A&M: Palestine. Doesn't actually exist as an entity to really be dealt with, but loves nothing more than to take pot-shots at Israel, just to tick them off. Economy based on farming, with an emphasis on sheep. Continuously complains that they're the real power in the region, and that their status should supersede that of Israel. Religious zealotry abounds; small, infrequent attacks on its neighbors are hailed as moral victories.
If The Big 12 Was In The Middle East...........
KANSAS: Saudi Arabia. Not altogether a bad place; has had historical success in oil and basketball, and continues to be a world leader in those areas. However, parts of the ruling family tends to thrive on its excess, much to its detriment; a certain prince's fondness for American culture (especially for its sweet baked goods) could very well lead to its downfall.
KANSAS STATE: Armenia. No one wants to be here, especially the Armenians. What's more, nobody really knows where it is. First came to prominence just a decade ago, and nobody can really remember it existing as an independent nation before that. Primary exports: Corn, junior college transfers.
NEBRASKA: Egypt. Was once a great power; its history, through the ages, is matched by few. Has languished in recent years, failing to recognize its new place in the world order as a follower, and not the leader it once was. Its people tend to be the friendliest to its neighbors, though still harboring a long simmering, yet contained, hatred for Israel.
COLORADO: United Arab Emirates. An incredibly refined populace-- probably because it's impossible to make it your home unless you're incredibly wealthy. Does its best to compete with its neighbors, but has resigned itself to being the playground of the region, instead of one of its traditional powers. Doesn't have a baseball team.
IOWA STATE: Afghanistan. There's really no reason that this nation should even exist, and if it weren't for previous colonial empires, it probably wouldn't. Easily overlooked over the last 300 years, its people are a ramshackle alliance of groups that don't belong anywhere else. Wishes to God, Allah, and whoever else that it would either cease to exist, or be swallowed up by Pakistan to the south, or the University of Iowa to the west.
MISSOURI: Turkey. Still trying to figure out how it got mixed up in this region, anyway. They're a member of NATO. Shouldn't they be in the Big Ten?
OKLAHOMA STATE: Syria. Nobody pays attention to them until they start mouthing off to the other nations around it. Will occasionally attack its neighbors, with varying success, with most of its successes coming in areas that others couldn't care less about, like wrestling.
TEXAS TECH: Iran. Really, REALLY wants to be noticed in the international community. Will go so far as to fake the development of nuclear weapons, or choose homicidal, maniacal, self-aggrandizing men as their president/basketball coach, just to get noticed. Incredibly eccentric as a nation. Has a deep-seated hatred of both Israel and Iraq--and a huge inferiority complex to go along with it. Very arid, dry climate featuring frequent windstorms.
BAYLOR: Lebanon. Everything they do is just a cluster, and no matter what they do, nothing ever seems to get better. Every once in awhile, it'll nip at the ankles of one of the larger nations, and piss those other nations off just enough to where they're smacked down and consequently can't achieve anything noteworthy for the next ten years.
OKLAHOMA: Iraq. Lies, cheats, and steals to get its way in the international community. If caught doing something wrong, or illegal, its excuse is that "everybody else has done it, we just get caught." No one wants to live here, but everybody that does wishes they could move away. Recently has undergone minor restructuring due to numerous ethics violations.
TEXAS: Israel. Pretty much everyone else in the region hates them. Can destroy lesser countries at will using incredibly advanced tactics. Not relegated to the stone-age lifestyle of many of its neighboring nations. Home of God's chosen people.
TEXAS A&M: Palestine. Doesn't actually exist as an entity to really be dealt with, but loves nothing more than to take pot-shots at Israel, just to tick them off. Economy based on farming, with an emphasis on sheep. Continuously complains that they're the real power in the region, and that their status should supersede that of Israel. Religious zealotry abounds; small, infrequent attacks on its neighbors are hailed as moral victories.
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE INDEBTED TO CHARLES DARWIN
Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago and his treatise on natural selection and evolution in "On the Origin of Species" is now 150 years old. His "Descent of Man" (1871) has been widely misinterpreted as holding that man's ancestors were apes. [Actually, that theory had been put forth earlier in Thomas Huxley's "Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature" (1863).] Darwin's theory of evolution has led to the establishment of DNA fingerprinting, an invaluable tool in the administration of justice.
Needless to say, fundamentalist Christians have been up in arms ever since Darwin's theory came into play. Social conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education are now tinkering with the public school science curriculum by trying to insert the teaching of "intelligent design" (creationism) alongside Darwin's theory as an alternative to evolution for students to puzzle over. Several other states have already inserted this foolish dilution of science into biology courses.
Eric Berger's story, "Scientists Use Darwin Theory to Develop New Technologies," in yesterday's Houston Chronicle included the application of evolution in the establishment of DNA fingerprinting as now employed by law enforcement. Here is part of Berger's story:
'Darwin’s observations in A Naturalist’s Voyage Around the World eventually led to the notions of natural selection and evolution, theories he laid out in On the Origin of Species, the 150th anniversary of which comes in December.
Thanks to the discovery of DNA’s structure in 1953 and the mapping of the human genome half a century later, biologists now say they understand the mechanisms by which genes mutate and species evolve. And they’re using that knowledge in increasingly powerful ways.
One of the first and most well-known uses of evolutionary theory has come in law enforcement.
Among the 3 billion or so chemical bits, or letters, in human DNA are those that change slowly and those that mutate rapidly. Scientists realized that short segments of DNA vary greatly from person to person as a result. The finding gave rise to the concept of DNA fingerprints to identify individuals.
By the late 1980s, scientists were testifying in court about the reliability of DNA evidence to convict criminals. Such evidence has become a powerful forensic tool.
"It’s had a tremendous impact on criminal justice, not the least of which has been to free a lot of innocent people," said Rusty Hardin, now a defense lawyer who in 1988 prosecuted the first Harris County case that used DNA evidence.'
Berger's story also provided information on how Darwin's theory has led to the creation of smarter computer programs and advances in the field of medicine. Thanks to the theory of evolution, DNA fingerprinting is used to establish the guilt of criminals and to exonerate the innocent. For that technology, the administration of justice is indebted to Charles Darwin.
Needless to say, fundamentalist Christians have been up in arms ever since Darwin's theory came into play. Social conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education are now tinkering with the public school science curriculum by trying to insert the teaching of "intelligent design" (creationism) alongside Darwin's theory as an alternative to evolution for students to puzzle over. Several other states have already inserted this foolish dilution of science into biology courses.
Eric Berger's story, "Scientists Use Darwin Theory to Develop New Technologies," in yesterday's Houston Chronicle included the application of evolution in the establishment of DNA fingerprinting as now employed by law enforcement. Here is part of Berger's story:
'Darwin’s observations in A Naturalist’s Voyage Around the World eventually led to the notions of natural selection and evolution, theories he laid out in On the Origin of Species, the 150th anniversary of which comes in December.
Thanks to the discovery of DNA’s structure in 1953 and the mapping of the human genome half a century later, biologists now say they understand the mechanisms by which genes mutate and species evolve. And they’re using that knowledge in increasingly powerful ways.
One of the first and most well-known uses of evolutionary theory has come in law enforcement.
Among the 3 billion or so chemical bits, or letters, in human DNA are those that change slowly and those that mutate rapidly. Scientists realized that short segments of DNA vary greatly from person to person as a result. The finding gave rise to the concept of DNA fingerprints to identify individuals.
By the late 1980s, scientists were testifying in court about the reliability of DNA evidence to convict criminals. Such evidence has become a powerful forensic tool.
"It’s had a tremendous impact on criminal justice, not the least of which has been to free a lot of innocent people," said Rusty Hardin, now a defense lawyer who in 1988 prosecuted the first Harris County case that used DNA evidence.'
Berger's story also provided information on how Darwin's theory has led to the creation of smarter computer programs and advances in the field of medicine. Thanks to the theory of evolution, DNA fingerprinting is used to establish the guilt of criminals and to exonerate the innocent. For that technology, the administration of justice is indebted to Charles Darwin.
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
To all Israelis, including those in the United States:
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
If you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, vote for the LIKUD party candidates in order to make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel.
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
The so-called "moderate" Palestinians and their leaders have repeatedly declared that their ultimate goal is the liberation of Palestine "from the river to the sea."
If you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, vote for the LIKUD party candidates in order to make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel.
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
Sunday, February 01, 2009
WARNING FOR PET OWNERS AND GARDENERS
Kay Daly, a wonderful lady with whom I often disagree politically, sent me a warning for pet owners and gardeners in which she wrote, "please pass this on to the caring people you know whether they have pets or not, whether they're gardeners or not..........Join those of us who hope there's a special hell for those who justify what they do or sell because "....only a small percentage of _______(fill in the blank with your choice of humans, livestock and pets, whatever tries to live and grow) will be damaged or die." When did that justification become the basis for safety concerns, for ethical behavior?"
Kay pleads, "Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this on to those who do." So in keeping with her request, I thought that placing the information she sent into my blog would give it the wide distribution it deserves.
Here is the information which, like Kay, I am asking my readers to pass on:
Recently the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. They loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog Calypso decided that the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, while on her morning walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's website, this product was found to be HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.
Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that 'It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it.'
This Snopes site gives the following information: http://www.snopes..com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp
Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other Garden supply stores, contains a lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.
Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline.
A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.
Kay pleads, "Please tell every dog or cat owner you know. Even if you don't have a pet, please pass this on to those who do." So in keeping with her request, I thought that placing the information she sent into my blog would give it the wide distribution it deserves.
Here is the information which, like Kay, I am asking my readers to pass on:
Recently the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. They loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog Calypso decided that the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping. She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way. The next day, while on her morning walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.
Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's website, this product was found to be HIGHLY toxic to dogs and cats.
Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that 'It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog). However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it.'
This Snopes site gives the following information: http://www.snopes..com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp
Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other Garden supply stores, contains a lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.
Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline.
A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cacao bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.
HATRED AND EUPHORIA
Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, had a great op-ed piece in the January 31, 2009 issue of The Wall Street Journal. Here is his column:
BUSH HATRED AND OBAMA EUPHORIA ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
By Peter Berkowitz
Now that George W. Bush has left the harsh glare of the White House and Barack Obama has settled into the highest office in the land, it might be reasonable to suppose that Bush hatred and Obama euphoria will begin to subside. Unfortunately, there is good reason to doubt that the common sources that have nourished these dangerous political passions will soon lose their potency.
At first glance, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria could not be more different. Hatred of Mr. Bush went well beyond the partisan broadsides typical of democratic politics. For years it disfigured its victims with open, indeed proud, loathing for the very manner in which Mr. Bush walked and talked. It compelled them to denounce the president and his policies as not merely foolish or wrong or contrary to the national interest, but as anathema to everything that made America great.
In contrast, the euphoria surrounding Mr. Obama's run for president conferred upon the candidate immunity from criticism despite his newness to national politics and lack of executive experience, and regardless of how empty his calls for change. At the same time, it inspired those in its grips, repeatedly bringing them tears of joy throughout the long election season. With Mr. Obama's victory in November and his inauguration last week, it suffused them with a sense that not only had the promise of America at last been redeemed but that the world could now be transfigured.
In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.
To be sure, democratic debate has always been a messy affair in which passion threatens to overwhelm reason. So long as citizens remain free and endowed with a diversity of interests and talents, it will remain so.
In October 1787, amid economic crisis and widespread fears about the new nation's ability to defend itself, Alexander Hamilton, in the first installment of what was to become the Federalist Papers, surveyed the formidable obstacles to giving the newly crafted Constitution a fair hearing. Some would oppose it, Hamilton observed, out of fear that ratification would diminish their wealth and power. Others would reject it because they hoped to profit from the political disarray that would ensue. The opposition of still others was rooted in "the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears."
Indeed, the best of men, Hamilton acknowledged, were themselves all-too-vulnerable to forming ill-considered political opinions: "So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes, which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society."
In surveying the impediments to bringing reason to bear in politics, it was not Hamilton's aim to encourage despair over democracy's prospects but to refine political expectations. "This circumstance, if duly attended to," he counseled, "would furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right, in any controversy."
As Hamilton would have supposed, the susceptibility of political judgment to corruption by interest and ambition is as operative in our time as it was in his. What has changed is that those who, by virtue of their education and professional training, would have once been the first to grasp Hamilton's lesson of moderation are today the leading fomenters of immoderation.
Bush hatred and Obama euphoria are particularly toxic because they thrive in and have been promoted by the news media, whose professional responsibility, it has long been thought, is to gather the facts and analyze their significance, and by the academy, whose scholarly training, it is commonly assumed, reflects an aptitude for and dedication to systematic study and impartial inquiry.
From the avalanche of vehement and ignorant attacks on Bush v. Gore and the oft-made and oft-refuted allegation that the Bush administration lied about WMD in Iraq, to the remarkable lack of interest in Mr. Obama's career in Illinois politics and the determined indifference to his wrongness about the surge, wide swaths of the media and the academy have concentrated on stoking passions rather than appealing to reason.
Some will speculate that the outbreak of hatred and euphoria in our politics is the result of the transformation of left-liberalism into a religion, its promulgation as dogma by our universities, and students' absorption of their professors' lesson of immoderation. This is unfair to religion.
At least it's unfair to those forms of biblical faith that teach that God's ways are hidden and mysterious, that all human beings are both deserving of respect and inherently flawed, and that it is idolatry to invest things of this world -- certainly the goods that can be achieved through politics -- with absolute value. Through these teachings, biblical faith encourages skepticism about grand claims to moral and political authority and an appreciation of the limits of one's knowledge, both of which well serve liberal democracy.
In contrast, by assembling and maintaining faculties that think alike about politics and think alike that the university curriculum must instill correct political opinions, our universities cultivate intellectual conformity and discourage the exercise of reason in public life. It is not that our universities invest the fundamental principles of liberalism with religious meaning -- after all the Declaration of Independence identifies a religious root of our freedom and equality. Rather, they infuse a certain progressive interpretation of our freedom and equality with sacred significance, zealously requiring not only outward obedience to its policy dictates but inner persuasion of the heart and mind. This transforms dissenters into apostates or heretics, and leaders into redeemers.
Consequently, though Bush hatred may weaken as the 43rd president minds his business back home in Texas, and while Obama euphoria may fade as the 44th president is compelled to immerse himself in the daunting ambiguities of power, our universities will continue to educate students to believe that hatred and euphoria reflect political wisdom. Urgent though the problem is, not even the efficient and responsible spending of a $1 trillion stimulus package would begin to address it.
BUSH HATRED AND OBAMA EUPHORIA ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
By Peter Berkowitz
Now that George W. Bush has left the harsh glare of the White House and Barack Obama has settled into the highest office in the land, it might be reasonable to suppose that Bush hatred and Obama euphoria will begin to subside. Unfortunately, there is good reason to doubt that the common sources that have nourished these dangerous political passions will soon lose their potency.
At first glance, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria could not be more different. Hatred of Mr. Bush went well beyond the partisan broadsides typical of democratic politics. For years it disfigured its victims with open, indeed proud, loathing for the very manner in which Mr. Bush walked and talked. It compelled them to denounce the president and his policies as not merely foolish or wrong or contrary to the national interest, but as anathema to everything that made America great.
In contrast, the euphoria surrounding Mr. Obama's run for president conferred upon the candidate immunity from criticism despite his newness to national politics and lack of executive experience, and regardless of how empty his calls for change. At the same time, it inspired those in its grips, repeatedly bringing them tears of joy throughout the long election season. With Mr. Obama's victory in November and his inauguration last week, it suffused them with a sense that not only had the promise of America at last been redeemed but that the world could now be transfigured.
In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.
To be sure, democratic debate has always been a messy affair in which passion threatens to overwhelm reason. So long as citizens remain free and endowed with a diversity of interests and talents, it will remain so.
In October 1787, amid economic crisis and widespread fears about the new nation's ability to defend itself, Alexander Hamilton, in the first installment of what was to become the Federalist Papers, surveyed the formidable obstacles to giving the newly crafted Constitution a fair hearing. Some would oppose it, Hamilton observed, out of fear that ratification would diminish their wealth and power. Others would reject it because they hoped to profit from the political disarray that would ensue. The opposition of still others was rooted in "the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears."
Indeed, the best of men, Hamilton acknowledged, were themselves all-too-vulnerable to forming ill-considered political opinions: "So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes, which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions, of the first magnitude to society."
In surveying the impediments to bringing reason to bear in politics, it was not Hamilton's aim to encourage despair over democracy's prospects but to refine political expectations. "This circumstance, if duly attended to," he counseled, "would furnish a lesson of moderation to those, who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right, in any controversy."
As Hamilton would have supposed, the susceptibility of political judgment to corruption by interest and ambition is as operative in our time as it was in his. What has changed is that those who, by virtue of their education and professional training, would have once been the first to grasp Hamilton's lesson of moderation are today the leading fomenters of immoderation.
Bush hatred and Obama euphoria are particularly toxic because they thrive in and have been promoted by the news media, whose professional responsibility, it has long been thought, is to gather the facts and analyze their significance, and by the academy, whose scholarly training, it is commonly assumed, reflects an aptitude for and dedication to systematic study and impartial inquiry.
From the avalanche of vehement and ignorant attacks on Bush v. Gore and the oft-made and oft-refuted allegation that the Bush administration lied about WMD in Iraq, to the remarkable lack of interest in Mr. Obama's career in Illinois politics and the determined indifference to his wrongness about the surge, wide swaths of the media and the academy have concentrated on stoking passions rather than appealing to reason.
Some will speculate that the outbreak of hatred and euphoria in our politics is the result of the transformation of left-liberalism into a religion, its promulgation as dogma by our universities, and students' absorption of their professors' lesson of immoderation. This is unfair to religion.
At least it's unfair to those forms of biblical faith that teach that God's ways are hidden and mysterious, that all human beings are both deserving of respect and inherently flawed, and that it is idolatry to invest things of this world -- certainly the goods that can be achieved through politics -- with absolute value. Through these teachings, biblical faith encourages skepticism about grand claims to moral and political authority and an appreciation of the limits of one's knowledge, both of which well serve liberal democracy.
In contrast, by assembling and maintaining faculties that think alike about politics and think alike that the university curriculum must instill correct political opinions, our universities cultivate intellectual conformity and discourage the exercise of reason in public life. It is not that our universities invest the fundamental principles of liberalism with religious meaning -- after all the Declaration of Independence identifies a religious root of our freedom and equality. Rather, they infuse a certain progressive interpretation of our freedom and equality with sacred significance, zealously requiring not only outward obedience to its policy dictates but inner persuasion of the heart and mind. This transforms dissenters into apostates or heretics, and leaders into redeemers.
Consequently, though Bush hatred may weaken as the 43rd president minds his business back home in Texas, and while Obama euphoria may fade as the 44th president is compelled to immerse himself in the daunting ambiguities of power, our universities will continue to educate students to believe that hatred and euphoria reflect political wisdom. Urgent though the problem is, not even the efficient and responsible spending of a $1 trillion stimulus package would begin to address it.
BIBI NETANYAHU FOR PRIME MINISTER
To all Israelis, including those in the United States, if you value the long-term survival of the Jewish state, vote for the LIKUD party candidates in order to make BIBI NETANYAHU the Prime Minister of Israel.
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
(Please note: This unsolicited endorsement of Benjamin Netanyahu will be repeated daily until the February 10th parliamentary elections.)
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