[HT:DT:
Pictures of the IDF the media never shows.
Can you envision Hamas acting in kind?
~ Dan
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"Can you envision Hamas acting in kind?"
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Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Krauthammer on the War with Hamas
Charles Krauthammer cuts through the hand wringing and lays into the "proportional response" crowd who not only have a problem with enemy identification but also demonstrate the moral sense of an ocelot - he rightly highlights the clear moral choice in supporting Israel:The grievance? It cannot be 'occupation', military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There's only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel's very existence.
Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world's opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire -- exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d'etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.The opponents of Israel in this conflict never get around to mentioning these facts. To do so would destroy their dishonest narrative that Israel is bombing Hamas to kill civilians and "punish" the terrorists for their pinpricks with overwhelming force. They believe that Israelis should live with the constant threat of sudden death from their enemies and not continue the "cycle of violence" - ignoring just who it is that is perpetrating the violence.
It is all very sophisticated and nuanced - and morally repugnant. Krauthammer reminds us just who is in the right and who is wrong in this conflict.
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Decency v bigotry
I have been absolutely overwhelmed by messages pouring in following my column in the Daily Mail today on the Gaza crisis. From these messages I have learned the following:
There is a large groundswell of support for Israel and detestation of Hamas; this is evident among people who are neither Jews nor evangelical Christians (who are usually pro-Israel) and have had no particular view about the Middle East one way or another... [snip]
There is a large groundswell of fury at the BBC in particular but also the print media for what people perceive to be morally bankrupt reporting, with gross prejudice against Israel and the ruthless delivery of Hamas propaganda...[snip]
There is huge ignorance about the most basic and fundamental facts about Israel and the Middle East impasse, and considerable anger that the media has either misled people about it all or left them in ignorance...[snip]
There is an unshakeable and utterly lethal belief in an entirely false view of Middle East history, fed not just by Arab and Muslim propaganda but also by Israel-hating Israeli academics resulting in spitting hatred of Israel which is represented in demonic terms. The historic resonance is unmistakeable -- and chilling.[snip]
The bad news, as this shows, is that Britain’s bigots are burgeoning – and have the media and intelligentsia in their pocket. The good news is that decency here has not yet died; indeed, among the ordinary people of this country, I get the feeling that that the penny is finally starting to drop...
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Demonstrators cry 'nuke Israel,' carry Hezbollah flags at U.S. anti-Israel rallies
[meanwhile, in America...]
Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany and signs depicting the Star of David as equal to the swastika have been a recurring feature at rallies in the United States protesting Operation Cast Lead, the Anti-Defamation League said on Monday.
In New York City's Times Square on Saturday, some demonstrators called for someone to 'nuke Israel', and held signs that read 'Israel: The Fourth Reich'... [snip]
"Comparisons of Israel to the Nazis are a deeply cynical perversion of history, an attempt to turn the tragedy that befell the Jewish people into a bludgeon against Israel. While we have come to expect to see such and hear this type of inflammatory rhetoric in Arab and Muslim capitals overseas, it is deeply disturbing that it is appearing in anti-Israel demonstrations at home ...
freedom of speech is not only a right, it is also a responsibility"
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Creators Syndicate, by R.Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.:
Does anyone know the name of the National Public Radio interviewer who was so disdainful of Israel's ambassador to the United States on the morning of Dec. 31? I missed his name. I would like to give him an award for sarcasm, rudeness and, well, controlled rage.
Maybe he would accept my shoes.
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CIA uses British informants to track terrorism
[HT:JB]
Washington - The CIA has begun an unprecedented intelligence-gathering operation in Britain to help MI5 monitor 4000 terrorism suspects. The US intelligence service is recruiting and handling a record number of informers within the British Pakistani community with the tacit agreement of the Government, security sources in Washington and London say.
Almost half of CIA operations to prevent attacks in the US are now conducted against targets in Britain...
['multiculturalism' in the new petri-dish enabling the global spread of hatred and extremism]
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In 2009, Let’s Get Louder
Geert Wilders has been named the Man of the Year by FrontPage Magazine, and the honor is richly deserved -- because Wilders in 2008 was fighting on the front lines of the most important battle in the global jihad today: the battle to defend free speech.
Free speech, besides the little detail of its being a foundational principle of Western civilization and any authentically free society, was in 2008, and will continue to be in 2009.
The multinational Islamic body and largest single voting bloc at the UN, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, condemned Fitna in “the strongest terms,” claiming that Wilders’s movie was “a deliberate act of discrimination against Muslims” intended only to “provoke unrest and intolerance.”
They succeeded in passing a non-binding resolution at the UN, outlawing defamation of Islam (defined by whom?), and are now seeking to pass a binding resolution of the same kind...
[the UN in no longer an organization of Western democracies - to our peril]
[Recommended >
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as is >
>> VIEW VIDEO HERE
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Global Warming Rope-a-Dope
The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet. Recently, more and more scientists are summoning up the courage to speak out and present evidence against the global warming rope-a-dope. [snip]
Dr. Goldenberg has the company of at least 650 noted scientists documented in the recently released U.S. Senate Report. The scientists, not environmental activists, include Ivar Giaever, Nobel Laureate in physics, who said,"I am a skeptic … Global warming has become a new religion."
Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an environmental physical chemist, said warming fears are the"worst scientific scandal in history … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists."
[I disagree re: blaming the scientific community - it's trying to get the truth out {note the >31 thousand signatories to the Global Warming Petition Project (just one of many)} - but there's simply a MSM blackout for contrary opinion. Doubt? compare public awareness of the above scientific association, specific to this issue, vs. the media 'coverage'...]
The Washington Post asserted on May 28, 2006 that there were only "a handful of skeptics" of manmade climate fears. Bill Blakemore on Aug. 30, 2006 said, "After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such (scientific) debate on global warming." In July 23, 2007, CNN's Miles O'Brien said, "The scientific debate is over." Earlier he said that scientific skeptics of manmade catastrophic global warming "are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually." [snip]
The fact of the matter is an increasing amount of climate research suggests a possibility of global cooling. Geologist Dr. David Gee, chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress, currently at Uppsala University in Sweden asks,"For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"
That's a vital question for Americans to ask, for once laws are written they are very difficult, if not impossible, to repeal...
[and that's the game plan... Highly Recommended > ]
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NASA's Hansen to Obama: Use Global Warming to Redistribute Wealth
Climate realists around the world have contended for years that the real goal of alarmists such as Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his followers is to use the fear of man-made global warming to redistribute wealth.
On Monday, one of Gore's leading scientific resources, Goddard Institute for Space Studies chief James Hansen, sent a letter to Barack and Michelle Obama specifically urging the president-elect to enact a tax on carbon emissions that would take money from higher-income Americans and distribute the proceeds to the less fortunate.
The eco-socialism cat was let out of the bag on page five of a PDF Hansen published at Columbia University's website on December 29 (emphasis added):... The most effective way to achieve this is a carbon tax (on oil, gas, and coal) at the well-head or port of entry. The tax will then appropriately affect all products and activities that use fossil fuels...
[Read this and be warned > ]
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‘We Need Stimulus Now!’ American Steel Makers Tell Obama
The U.S. steel industry, with demand for its products in the doldrums, has joined the chorus of beleaguered domestic industries jostling for position on President-elect Barack Obama’s list of projects in his promised multi-billion dollar national economic stimulus plan. Steel Manufacturers Association President Thomas Danjczek said that a stimulus package is needed immediately...
[the slope steepens...]
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The Obama Economy: Stimulating Growth, Or Funding Failure?
Someone in the world of editorial columns recently predicted that a ''bailout backlash'' would begin in the year 2010. Could we arrange for that backlash to get started a little sooner - - like, now?
(Snip) to the extent that one can actually follow how Paulson has disbursed our $700 billion, one thing is clear: he has not allocated the revenues in the ways he stated that he needed to - - by buying up ''troubled assets'' (bad loans) from lenders...
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LET DETROIT BUILD PROFITABLE CARS
In the continuing battle over Detroit, there is one alternative that may relieve some of the pressure off wages and benefits: free automakers to build cars for profit rather than meet regulatory mandates.
Like all regulatory schemes, Congress's Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules froze in place a conception of the auto industry as it appeared to the minds of Congress in the early 1970s, when three manufacturers dominated the U.S. market, making full lines of vehicles. Today, more than 25 companies sell vehicles here, and the corollary of such diversity, normally, is specialization.
The Big Three, left to their own devices, would surely specialize in those vehicles on which they make money—those with hefty price tags and markup relative to their man-hour content.
- Even at the peak of gas prices, half the vehicles sold in the U.S. were light trucks.
- In November, amid a collapsed home construction industry and with $4 gasoline fresh in mind, what were two top sellers [all makes]? Pickups by Ford and Chevy.
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FREE TRADE SHOULD BE PART OF THE STIMULUS PLAN
President-elect Barack Obama is focused on preparing a stimulus plan to "jolt" the American economy. Yet missing thus far is any mention of international trade as part of his plan.
- Will the Democrats' promised review of NAFTA lead to a re-negotiation of our trade relations with Mexico and Canada? American workers and businesses will best be able to compete with China and other developing countries in Asia if we have more regional economic integration in this hemisphere, not less.
- What about Democratic approval of the pending free-trade agreement with Panama? American workers and business could clearly benefit from their fair share of contracts for the pending $5 billion expansion of the Panama Canal.
- What about Colombia? American workers and businesses would certainly profit from the proposed tariff cuts in that agreement that would result in $1 billion annually in new exports.
- Will Democrats make the successful conclusion of the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Round of global trade negotiations an immediate and high priority? Offers already on the table in the Doha Round would, over 10 years, create $120 billion annually in additional market access for developed and developing countries alike.
[A: nope. Unions don't like the competition {and we know who they own}, sorry.]
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HEALTH WARNING
Washington is gearing up for a new run at heath care next year, which is another way of saying that it's an arms race to promise the most while disguising the costs, says the Wall Street Journal. Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag was the former head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and his useful work there on the unchecked growth of U.S. health spending, especially entitlements, ought to put the cost issue at the center of the 2009 debate.
According to CBO reports:
- In dollars, this amounts to $1.4 trillion -- nearly 30 percent of the entire federal budget.
- If costs grow on pace, U.S. medical spending will rise to 25 percent of GDP in 2025, from 17 percent today.
- In one scenario, CBO finds that allowing the nonpoor to buy into Medicaid would cost $7.8 billion over the next decade.
- If that sounds like pocket change, keep in mind that Democrats want to make both the public option and private insurance less expensive for beneficiaries by transferring extra costs to the government, which would cost an estimated $752 billion.
[and where does the government get 'its' money?
Further socializing our health care is the worst thing we can do - we need institute personal medical saving accounts now which require a degree of people spending their own money on health, or the real problem of run-away cost increases will never be fixed (until the nation is bankrupted, that is)]
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SINGAPORE A LESSON WAITING
The United States spends about 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP). Many suggest that the United States should emulate Europe and Canada, which spend an estimated 7 percent to 10 percent of GDP on health care.
On the cost side, that sounds pretty good at first blush, but they don't innovate much, and Pittsburgh has more MRI machines than all of Canada. A better model, suggests Schlomach, is Singapore:
- This city-state has a healthier population than most, but spends less than 4 percent of its GDP on health care.
- Singapore only lightly regulates private health care providers, requiring them to post prices so consumers can shop around.
- Singapore provides a safety net for basic health care for the indigent, and it requires citizens to be financially responsible for their care through mandatory deductions for health savings accounts.
- Singapore's government promises to pay 80 percent of basic health costs and provides a state catastrophic insurance plan that competes with private plans.
- Even so, government pays only 25 percent of the total health bill. U.S. governments pay almost 50 percent.
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SCHOOL CHOICE INTERNATIONAL
... The findings speak quite clearly:
- Competition from private schools improves student achievement, and appears to do so for public school as well as private school students.
- It produces these benefits while decreasing the total resources devoted to education, as measured by cumulative educational spending per pupil.
- Under competitive pressures from private schools, the productivity of the school system measured as the ratio between output and input increases by even more than is suggested by looking at educational outcomes alone.
- Ironically, although Catholics historically placed less emphasis on education than did adherents of many other religions, their resistance to state-run schooling in many countries helped create institutional configurations that continue to outperform government run systems.
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Home-schoolers: There is no hope in Obama
In the last election, unions spent $450 million to elect candidates who favor their agenda. They have succeeded beyond the dreams of avarice. The federal government is now virtually the empire of Big Labor.
Especially gleeful are the teachers' unions, who helped elect a president explicitly and vociferously opposed to vouchers.
Even as America's students have dropped to their lowest level on standardized tests compared to students internationally, and even as drop-out rates soar past the 50 percent mark in most of the largest urban school districts, President-elect Barack Obama has shown contempt for school choice-even as he exercised school choice in enrolling his own children in the most expensive and exclusive private prep school in Washington, D.C.
But there is a ray of hope for those who favor freedom of choice in education: home schooling. A report just out in Education Next (by Milton Gaither) shows that in the face of the continuing failure of the public school system and the roadblocks to freedom erected by the public school special interest groups, parents are increasingly home schooling their children. Especially striking is the growth of home schooling among African American households... [snip]
No doubt the public school monopoly will continue to use its force (fueled by millions of dollars in union dues) to keep its stranglehold on American education. We can anticipate major efforts to stop home schooling in its tracks. Here in California, Justice H. Walter Croskey ruled last year that home schooling was illegal unless the parents had teaching credentials (as if that were any indication of teaching competence!)
The ruling was reversed, but it is just a matter of time before another move is made...
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Gen. Sherman's 'Disproportionate Response'
History
Reviled in the South to this day as a terrorist, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman decided that the only way to end the protracted armed conflict of the American Civil War and terminate the rebellious, racist, slave-regime in the south was to bring the war home to the civilian population of the Confederacy.
(Snip) Recognizing that it was not in their economic interest to continue the fight, civilian political support for the Confederacy began a precipitous collapse...
[Recommended > ]
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CONGRESS TARGETS PHILANTHROPY
Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-Ca.) thinks he's discovered a new source of political treasure: the money inside private and community foundations. Unless foundations reprogram money in the direction of Mr. Becerra's preferences, he'll start proceedings to dismantle their tax exemption.
But he may want to think twice. A study out this month suggests that foundations spread economic benefits more broadly through society than had been previously imagined. For the $43 billion that foundations spent on grants in 2007, they created direct economic benefits of $368 billion. Those nonprofits that consistently outperform government programs have been saving taxpayers a bundle. Consider:
- Foundations offered $10 billion to support health-related programs, which yielded $75 billion in benefits.
- Some $10 billion for education programs produced $49 billion in benefits.
- $6 billion for human-services programs produced $65 billion in benefits.
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ABC News Shocker: The 'All Time Dumb Quotes' Are All From Republicans
Looks like ABC News is starting out 2009 with a partisan bang. On its main page, ABC News is hosting a slide show featuring what it is calling the "All Time Dumb Quotes." Now, these are not all strictly political dumb quotes, to be sure. They also have the denizens of the Hollywood Mensa club among the 16 featured quotes -- and some of them are doozies, too.
But, there are six political quotes five by Republicans and one by Tina Fey making fun of a Republican (Palin, naturally), yet there are no "All Time Dumb Quotes" from any Democrats. Not a one. Apparently ABC doesn't think there's ever been a dumb Democrat?
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2008: The year the U.S. media lost relevance
What would happen if America won a war and no one reported it? Is it still news? What if a credible argument were made pretty much demolishing Darwin's theory of evolution? If no media outlet conveyed this information to the American public, does that mean it is not a valid argument?
The old media elite, comprised of less than 1 percent of our population, has set the agenda and defined the issues in America for decades. More importantly, the old media has had the ability to relegate any facts that didn't conform to their version of reality to the ash heap. If it doesn't make the news, it's not news.
Ignoring inconvenient news and embarrassing facts is a tried and true tactic of the liberal media. A prime example is conservative author, Thomas Sowell. Sowell has written dozens of books dealing with race, culture, economics and other issues vital to America [and frequently posted here]. More importantly, his facts have never been rebutted. Knowing there is no chance of disputing Sowell's studies and conclusions, the media elite have chosen to ignore him. He is simply not a part of their carefully fashioned reality.
A majority of Americans are now somewhat aware of media bias. Increasingly, when reading a news story, Americans have the ability to recognize the obvious slant. This is all well and good. What is not well and good, is the fact that many of us are not made aware of all the news out there that is ignored — credible, relevant facts that are simply not reported.
How many of you are aware that at the recent UN gathering on global warming, 650 renown scientists made a credible challenge to the UN's conclusion that man-made global warming is a crisis situation requiring trillions of our tax dollars to remedy?
Once again, a credible challenge to a core tenet of progressivism was ignored rather than rebutted. This is media malfeasance.
The lack of reporting both sides of a story is having a pernicious effect on America, breeding anti-Americanism, victimology, feelings over facts and form over substance. The traditional values which made our country great, including those derived from Christianity, capitalism, the importantce of families are being cast aside.
The media would have us believe that inclusiveness, multiculturalism, equality and the environment are the most important themes facing our country today. And millions of Americans blindly accept their version of reality as gospel...
[thank God none of us get our news from TV... Highly Recommended {surprise} > ]
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For Dummies series tackles climate change
"Readers may be scared by information about the effects of climate change, like melting permafrost, disappearing glaciers, rising seas, the spread of pests and diseases, eradication of species, and declining sources of food and drinkable water, but the book also offers solutions and hope for the future", Ms. May said. [Hmm. Who wrote this thing...?]
Both authors are globally recognised environmental activists. Ms. May, currently federal Green Party leader, was executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada for 17 years and policy adviser to former prime minister Brian Mulroney. Ms. Caron’s pedigree includes membership in the Canadian Youth Climate Change Coalition and the board of directors of the Sierra Club of Canada
[stop laughing {or crying} it's ok because...]
The book was fact-checked by scientists from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a 2,000-member body that has created an objective source* of climate information.
[apologies - resume laughing/crying]
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[BTW: about that 'objective source' crack - for the record, the IPCC's charter is:
"The IPCC was established to provide the decision-makers and others interested in climate change with an objective source of information about climate change. The IPCC does not conduct any research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters. Its role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the latest scientific, technical and socio-economic literature produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change"
I.e., it assume AGW as fact and exists only to enact policies to 'counter' it. Can't get much more 'objective' than that.]
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Threat of Punishment Works, Study 'Suggests'
The threat of punishment actually does stamp out freeloaders, tending to transform them into rule-following members of a society, a new study suggests.
The research results show how established norms and rules in a society could keep freeloaders in check and increase pro-social behavior, such as helping others or sharing with them rather than looking out for number one.
The new study shows that punishment gets ingrained in people's psyches in a way that causes them to fear getting into trouble. This fear can keep otherwise freeloaders, who would normally act as sponges to soak up the generosity of others without having to contribute any time or money, on the straight-and-narrow.
[could have saved themselves a bundle on 'study' costs by talking to a responsible parent]
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