Thursday, January 31, 2013
What else is time for but this?
Today Ann Voskamp writes about a little girl who needs a new heart...and how God's love is revealed.
We can’t overthrow whole systems today and empty out the sick wards by noon and mop up the whole planet’s oceans of tears by sundown and we can’t get hearts for the brokenhearted, but by God and in God and through GodRead and see more here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/01/what-radical-christianity-looks-like-right-where-you-are-pt-3/We can show them God’s heart for them.
We can rip back all these layers of busyness.
We can let the rest of the world all stampede by in this lemming lunge to suburban success.
And we can slow.
And we can kneel.
And can take the time given to us to bear our bare, vulnerable selves, and show the broken down – the pulsing heart of God right in us, right with them.
That thundering question of Where is God?
Is best answered when the people of God offer a hand and whisper: Here I am.
That thundering question of Where is God?
Is best answered when the people of God tear everything else away and take the time to show it: Here’s His love for you – beating right here, right here in me, right here for you.
What else is time for but this?
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Wanting to see more of the Winning Witch
M.K. Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes re-posts a very long list of attributes of psychopaths originally published at Dove Counseling. He notes that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seem to possess many of the listed traits. What is Hillary's appeal?
The appeal is not that men don’t want to see her naked. The appeal is that we don’t want to be in the same room with her. That is the much-sought-after attribute. She makes us want to leave the room. “I never left her presence without a sigh of relief,” I think is how Queen Victoria’s son Edward VII described his relationship with her. Like Barbra Streisand; we find out she’s giving a concert and our wives want to go (a bullet I’ve thankfully dodged), and we suddenly get food poisoning. Real and unfaked, albeit self-induced, food poisoning if that’s what it takes. Any wad of oxygen we’re burning, we don’t want this hollering ditz burning the same wad of oxygen. Ever. They come in, and if the option is available to us, we go out.“Bitch,” I believe is the slang. A repellent woman, worst mother-in-law you can possibly imagine, with a voice that pierces. Sounds like an annoyed teacher dressing down an annoying and slow third-grade student who just broke something by being an idiot, or got on her last nerve in some other way, BUT ALL OF THE TIME. If it was possible for you to load a voice into your gun, there would be a law saying you couldn’t have this one. (And probably made by some woman who uses that voice, ironically enough.)
Awkward-looking, pantsuit-wearing, unappealing, shrill-harpy-voice, determined to steamroll right over anybody else who might wish to say something…and mean.
Someone, somewhere, not only doesn’t mind this, but has an appetite for this. An insatiable appetite. Wants to see more and more of the Winning Witch. Who are these people? And what’s the goal?
Whoever these people are who want to see more of the Winning Witch, they have managed to have a lot of things go their way since the Year Of The Woman, 1992. Feminism itself had the wind knocked out of it, when the feminists started defending Bill Clinton and people everywhere figured out feminism had nothing to do with womens’ rights, and everything to do with electing democrats. I’d go so far as to say that effectively killed the movement we knew back then. But this “get more unpleasant and silly women into public office” movement, throughout that time, persevered without even slowing up any. So this isn’t even feminism. It isn’t even liberalism. This is more like a movement to get bad decision-makers into offices where they can do real damage. The ones straight men can’t stand. That do a lot of yelling.
Read more here: http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/the-winning-witch/#comments
Duplicate funding by government-funded science researchers
Hank Campbell writes in Science 2.0 that $72 billion dollars was wasted in subsidies for green energy companies with the right political connections in the last four years. However, did you know that many millions more were wasted in grants to researchers who submitted duplicate proposals to multiple agencies?
The Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech has found that funding agencies may have awarded millions of dollars to scientists who submitted the same grant request numerous times — and that scientists accepted the duplicate funding. The analysis led by Dr. Harold R. "Skip" Garner of the Medical Informatics Research Group, found that $70 million in funding this past decade - and maybe billions overall - looks inappropriate.If you submit a new proposal right after you just received funding from another agency, one to research ethanol-resistance genes and one to research ethanol-hypersensitivity genes in C. elegans, was that illegal? Well, no, but getting double funding from the army and from the NIH at the same time for a project that seems a lot alike is certainly suspect. Plus, budgets are finite, someone else got denied a million dollars in research funds because another researcher better knew how to exploit the government-controlled science system.
It could be as much as 2.5 percent of total research funding, equivalent to $5.1 billion since 1985."
Read more here: http://www.science20.com/science_20/waste_some_scientists_may_have_taken_millions_duplicate_funding-102337
Too windy
Avoiding tough choices
Victor Davis Hanson writes about how we keep on avoiding making tough choices.,
In the case of big-city murdering, serious talk about the culture of gangs and the causes of the pathology of thousands of minority males, who are vastly overrepresented as both victims and perpetrators of gun violence, is a no-win proposition, given the politically correct climate and the existential issues involved. Can one imagine any politician decrying the violent lyrics of rap music, the culture of dependency on government, or the absence of stiff incarceration for the use of a gun during a crime with the same zeal that he has shown in going after the NRA?
But, what about the debt and spending crises?
After all the fighting over the fiscal cliff, and all the demagoguery over the rich paying their fair share, we have achieved almost nothing tangible in terms of reducing the debt. The president offered no budget freeze, no curtailment of entitlement costs, no adjustments in age or other conditions of eligibility — nothing at all that would have addressed the astronomical rate at which the government has been spending since 2009. Obama is therapist-in-chief, and he avoids any tragic admission that there are sometimes just a bad choice and a worse one — in this case, between cutting back and going broke.In other words, we taxed the 1 percent more, felt great about it, declared success, and now still face financial Armageddon — terrified to tell the 99 percent that either their taxes must go way up, or their entitlements must go way down, or more likely both. What we have failed to do would solve the problem and cause a national outcry; what we have actually done is as widely popular as it will do nothing.
But, what about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Keeping small residual forces in Iraq and Afghanistan might well have allowed the provisional consensual governments in those two countries to remain viable and not be transmogrified into tyrannies. To do so might have ensured that the terrible cost in American blood and treasure over the last decade at least had offered Afghans and Iraqis — and the world — something better than the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Yet to keep small bases there would also have angered American voters, sick of both wars and of the seeming ingratitude of those we did so much to help.
Read more here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338958/age-tokenism-victor-davis-hanson
Punishing law-abiding citizens, failing to deter or prevent crime, and doing nothing to make us safer
Newt Gingrich, who I thought was the best of the GOP candidates in 2012, weighs in on the gun control debate:
Feeling the need to “do something” after a tragedy like the one that occurred at Sandy Hook is certainly understandable. But we shouldn’t pass laws that punish law-abiding citizens, fail to deter or prevent crime, and do nothing to make us safer.Read more here: http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/30/newt-gingrich-gun-debate-about-more-than-assault-weapons/If we can win this debate, maybe the left will get around to asking why so many people are shooting each other in Chicago and Los Angeles, rather than obsessing over which particular guns they’re using to do it.
Al, you are confusing us!
Al Gore tells Matt Lauer that he disagrees with those who criticize him. David Harsanyi is confused.
I’m confused. What is Gore disagreeing about? Does Al Gore disagree that Qatar would not have any economy if it weren’t for the oil and natural gas that happens to lie underneath it? Does he disagree that Al Jazeera is backed by money used to sell that oil and natural gas to the world? Gas and oil that he says is destroying the planet, does he not? Does he disagree with the State Department that Qatar is a “destination country for men and women” subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution as the government “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.” Does he disagree that Qatar funds terror groups like Hamas? Does Al Gore believe that extracting $100 million in oil money from a network looking to gain footing in the US market isn’t immoral simply because he finds the network’s climate change coverage up to his standards? Or is Gore actually saying that an organization that features global warming coverage that meets his expectations has a dispensation from criticism?Or is Al Gore just greedy, like all those capitalist swindlers the Democrats keep warning us about? In the same interview Gore claims that “as an independent network, the only independent news and information network, we found it difficult to compete in an age of conglomerates.” Actually, we’re in the age of democratized media and thousands of smaller media outlets compete every day with the big ones. We used to be in the age of media conglomerates, we are no longer. So Current wasn’t especially “independent” – whatever that means. And Al Jazeera, a state-run network of a theocracy, even less.
Read more here: http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/29/al-gore/
A more modest view of government
The new Senator from Texas sure does know how to write a letter: (Click on it to enlarge)
I found it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/122799297/Letter-from-Senator-Ted-Cruz-to-Chicago-Mayor-Rahm-Emanuel-Bank-of-America-TD-Bank-Group-Smith-Wesson-and-Sturm-Ruger-Co
A wolf in wolf's clothing
Ann Coulter, never one to mince words, writes that Rubio's plan is a path to oblivion for the GOP. She writes at Human Events that
Rubio’s bill is nothing but amnesty. It isn’t even “amnesty thinly disguised as border enforcement.” This is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.Read more here: http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/30/coulter-rubios-amnesty-a-path-to-oblivion-for-gop/The only thing the newly legalized illegal immigrants won’t get immediately is citizenship. Rubio claims that under his plan, they won’t be able to vote or go on welfare. But in practice, they’ll have to wait only until the ACLU finds a judge to say otherwise.
Even under Rubio’s scheme, all the children born to the 11 million newly legalized illegals will be instant citizens, able to collect welfare for their whole families and vote as soon as they are old enough.
Which won’t be long: The vast majority of illegal aliens are Hispanic, and Hispanics have a higher teen birthrate than any other ethnic group. In California, a majority of all Hispanic births are illegitimate. That’s a lot of Democratic voters coming.
GOP Strategery
Grim's Hall picks up on a witty piece of writing in the Comments section at Red State:
My question is why did the GOP pick up the amnesty flag at all? This was a priority?Found here: http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2013/01/strategery.htmlThe GOP "reasoning" seems to be this . . .
Budget, nah, can't be bothered.
Exploding Deficit, just doesn't seem important.
Runaway Government both in size and power grab, not really worth addressing.
Amnesty, that’s the ticket, it wrecks the budget, explodes the deficit, increases the runaway government and best of all it peeves our base! One other benefit, it increases the Democrats base. Wow, why didn't we think of this before!
Trucking in Asia
This guy clearly needs a bigger truck.
Which industries do you trust?
From the blog These Things Happen:
The public relations firm of Edelman has published their 2013 consumers’ Trust survey and for the third year in a row it turns out we love Technology with a capital “T.” Somehow we find ways to overlook Google’s prying/spying ways, Microsoft’s bumbling software releases, or all those pricey gadgety things that keep breaking and/or going out of date in 3 months.
Click on the image to see it better. Found here: http://sponge-headedscienceman.blogspot.com/2013/01/obama-is-technology-republicans-are.html
Spokesmen for our Constitution
A supercluster of galaxies
From SciTech Daily:
This ESO picture of the week shows the region around the Abell 901/902 supercluster of galaxies. It was created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.I want to know about that red star! Read more here: http://scitechdaily.com/the-abell-901902-supercluster-of-galaxies/This deep-field image shows what is known as a supercluster of galaxies — a giant group of galaxy clusters which are themselves clustered together. This one, known as Abell 901/902, comprises three separate main clusters and a number of filaments of galaxies, typical of such super-structures. One cluster, Abell 901a, can be seen above and just to the right of the prominent red foreground star near the middle of the image. Another, Abell 901b, is further to the right of Abell 901a, and slightly lower. Finally, the cluster Abell 902 is directly below the red star, towards the bottom of the image.
The Abell 901/902 supercluster is located a little over two billion light-years from Earth, and contains hundreds of galaxies in a region about 16 million light-years across. For comparison, the Local Group of galaxies — which contains our Milky Way among more than 50 others — measures roughly ten million light-years across.
A possible Alzheimers vaccine?
Researchers at the Université Laval (Quebec) have shown that the molecule MPL (monophosphoryl lipid A) can eliminate up to 80% of the senile plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease when injected into mice. The researchers believe that it could be administered to Alzheimer’s patients to slow the progression of the disease and to stimulate their natural immunity.
Read more here: http://scitechdaily.com/a-step-towards-a-possible-alzheimers-vaccine-researchers-eliminate-up-to-80-of-senile-plaques-in-mice/
What will they ban next?
The proposed gun ban has a lot of people riled up. I don't know, though, if it is enough to cause the electorate to throw out the politicians who support the bans. What else could they ban that would guarantee their ouster? James at I DON'T KNOW, BUT... suggested a ban on cars would probably do the trick. Any ideas?
http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com/2013/01/presumption.html
Don't Smoke! (and other random medical news)
(Click on the image to make it easier to read).
found here: http://baddatabad.blogspot.com/2013/01/lets-get-ready-to-rumble.html
Half of teens 16-19 are driving without a license!
Did you know that about half of teens 16-19 are now driving without a license? That number has been steadily increasing since the 1980s.Steve Sailer expounds on the subject:
Generally, it's much harder to pass the driver's test now. Kids flunk it multiple times. Also, there are all sorts of restrictions on new drivers to prevent the kind of horrific stories you used to read in the papers about four 16-year-olds being killed in a one car accident celebrating the driver's 16th birthday.Drunk driving is very expensive now. I recently overheard one intelligent looking youth explaining to his less acute looking friend that a single DUI would cost you about $10,000 all told -- a good round number to memorize.
Overall, kids just don't go out much anymore. They have glowing screens at home.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/01/teens-without-drivers-licenses.html
Elitists debate music
Although I don't know anything about the albums mentioned here, except the Whitney Houston one that is completely disparaged in this video, I find this discussion hilarious. And, next week is gender-swap day at the elitist preschool! No wonder I homeschooled my kids through the first grade!
found here: http://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-im-talking-about.html
Daniel Hannon
Trust, don't verify, and hope!
Do you know about the Global Zero advocates? Peter Huessy writes about them at The Gatestone Institute. Instead of President Reagan's "trust, but verify" approach, Huessy writes that the Global Zero advocates want the Unite States to adopt a policy of "trust, don't verify, and hope" policy. Currently the U.S. has a Nuclear Triad of land-based nuclear missiles, submarines and bombers equipped with nuclear weapons, thus making it impossible for an enemy to cripple us from defending ourselves. The Global Zero advocates, according to Huessy, want the U.S. to
move our deployed warheads off alert, so they could not be used for days or months after a crisis occurred, certainly would give incentives to other parties in a conflict to have nuclear weapons at the ready so they could be used to defeat everybody else.There are adversaries of the US that have, or are urgently attempting to acquire, nuclear weapons; adversaries that include Russia, China and North Korea, with Iran now projected to have sufficient nuclear material for a weapon as early as 2014. Will all of these nuclear powers actually put aside their nuclear weapons, making them unusable in a crisis?
Obama has selected Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense. Hagel is a Global Zero advocate.
Senator Hagel, while signing up to the timetable for the elimination of all nuclear weapons, also said in the 2009 Al Jazeera interview, that nuclear weapons can be abolished because they no longer need to play a traditional deterrent role. As part of this strategy, Hagel proposes to "de-alert" our weapons, making them unusable in a crisis. This raises the question of why any adversary would also volunteer to put its nuclear warheads in reserve and significantly delay its own ability to use such weapons, especially when doing so is largely unverifiable.Read more here: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3562/global-zero-nuclear-weapons
Obama not content with massive centralization of government in America
an open, internal market based on nation states rather than the centralizing and protectionist supranational European superstate currently in the making.Read more here: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3559/obama-eu-britain
Today's thoughts about our brains
From Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's wonderful book My Stroke of Insight: Our brain cells do not multiply like other cells. Whether you are ten or eighty, you have the same cells (neurons) in your brain that you had when you were born! However, neural connections change with our life experiences. These differences in wiring contribute to our individual preferences and personalities. We have over one trillion cells in our nervous system, and over fifty trillion cells in our bodies.
The brain is divided into two hemispheres, left and right. They communicate with each other through an "information highway," the corpus callosum.
One of the features of the left hemisphere is the limbic system. That is where emotions are attached to the information traveling into the brain through the information highway. When we are newborns, these cells become wired together in response to sensory stimulation. These limbic systems do not mature. Therefore, we retain the ability to react to situations just like a two-year-old!
Then, how do we get the ability to respond in a more mature way? That's where the more complex (and more evolutionarily recent) cortical regions of the brain come in to play. These cells are neurons that we believe to be uniquely human. They enable us to choose a more mature response to situations.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Amazing trampoline feats
Flares of Darkness posted this You Tube video of Christophe Hamel demonstrating trampoline feats. I had to re-post it here for my sons to watch!
North Korea, Iran, China, and Algeria
The Flares of Darkness blog republishes with permission two Stratfor articles. One is on the ferocious, weak, and crazy strategy that North Korea has been using, and now Iran may be trying. The other is about the Algerian hostage crisis.
Read them here: http://yargb.blogspot.com/
Did Rubio get the best of Rush?
Paul Mirengoff, writing at PowerLine, believes Marco Rubio got the best of Rush Limbaugh today in discussing immigration reform. Mirengoff believes that the result of passage of immigration reform will be
the inability, for decades, of the Republican party to win more than the odd election as a conservative entity.
Read more here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/01/theres-cause-for-alarm-as-rubio-makes-headway-with-limbaugh-on-immigration-reform.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+powerlineblog%2Flivefeed+%28Power+Line%29
Update: This morning I heard the Executive Director of the public policy arm of Focus on the Family interviewed on the radio about Rubio's bill. He said good things about it. Conservatives seem to be on board for the bill as it now stands, especially since there is a fine and a go to the back of the line clause for those coming in to the U.S. illegally.How our leaders distract us
Time for a little sarcasm from Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club:
Thank God wiser heads have got their priorities straight. The ignorant Bush might have panicked over terrorism but real intellectuals now in charge understand that global warming, big gulp softdrinks, cats and Republicans in Congress are the far greater threat.Trust in our leaders, friends. Trust in Hillary. They know what is good for us. There’s a deep, wise reason for Benghazi.
Women in combat
the real problem no one wants to talk about: rape. By fellow soldiers, and especially if captured (nearly all women soldier POW's are sexually assaulted, but no one wants to discuss the matter).Read more here: http://fkclinic.blogspot.com/2013/01/women-in-combat.html
Why the ammo and armed vehicles for Homeland Security?
Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports that
Obama’s Homeland Security Department has purchased 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition – that is not a typo — during the last six months.
If we had real journalists, they would be asking the White House why and what the Homeland Security Department plans to use that ammo for. Jim also has pictures of heavily armed vehicles FEMA has purchased. Why?
Read more here: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/01/obama-administration-repositioning-homeland-security-ammunition-containers/
Some body art
A real journalist
Jason Mattera asks Mayor Bloomberg if he is going to disarm his entire security team in the "spirit of gun control." He also offers the mayor a sip of his soda, the size of which Bloomberg wants to ban. That part made me laugh out loud. My rule of thumb is that if something makes me laugh out loud, it goes on my blog. Jason is on the radio every morning on the Andrea Tanteros program, which has replaced the Laura Ingraham show here in the Denver area.
EPA regulations stifling solid-fuel energy facilities
Thanks to the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency, a planned power plant in Corpus Christi, Texas has been scrapped by the company which wanted to invest $3 billion to create 3,900 jobs. The company's CEO, Dave Freysinger, said, "“The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants,” he said. “These costly rules exceeded the bounds of EPA authority, incur tremendous costs, and produce no real benefits related to climate change.”
Read more: http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/27/epa-kills-texas-power-plant-3900-jobs/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS#ixzz2JPR4VxIV Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
"Cash for guns!"
According to Christine Willmsen of the Seattle Times, police in Seattle held a gun buy-back event Saturday, offering $100.00 for handguns, rifles, and shotguns, and $200.00 for "Assault weapons." The police did not pay cash; instead they offered gift cards, ending the event several hours earlier than planned, after they gave out $80,000 in cards!
Some in the long lines lost patience and gave in to the people who surrounded the parking lot with signs saying “Cash for guns.”One man jumped out of his vehicle as he was waiting in bumper-to-bumper traffic at the buyback and asked how much the gun enthusiasts and collectors were willing to pay for his three guns. He pocketed $500.
Read more here: http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020223445_gunbuybackxml.html
What corrupts us?
Does power corrupt? David Warren doesn't think so:
The higher levels simply develop from the lower. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, were not corrupted by power. Not even slightly. They were what they were from the start. Power introduces temptations not available on the humbler scales of human activity, which is a good reason for preventing our corrupt fellow humans from getting too much of it. It may go to the head of a person who has never had much power before, but then, it is going to the head of a person who had that kind of head, & never made the effort to get it cured.
Well, what about money? Doesn't money corrupt? Again, Warren says no:
Similarly, it is not money that corrupts, per se. Observe the behaviour of the winners of lotteries, who are often, if not usually, destroyed by their sudden prizes. Money gave them the ability to buy what they always wanted. The problem was with what they always wanted.
But what about wisdom? Why is it that younger adults tend to be liberal, and older adults tend to be conservative?
It is no accident that, as they grow older, & until they lose their wits, the sane become more “conservative” in this way; in the sense of, less apt to jump to conclusions. Pain is the great teacher in this respect; or more broadly, pain & failure. And the exception proves the rule: for those who have found success by chance, without meeting obstacles sufficient to “humiliate” them, tend almost invariably to be stupid jerks.
Read more here: http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/2013/01/20/to-be-human/
Nothing to rebuild, but Christendom
David Warren writes about elections and perpetual expansion of centralized government under bureaucratic czars.
It is amusing how representative democracy works. There is not a policy on Obama’s sleigh that enjoys widespread popular support, if polls are to be believed. Opposition to things like gay marriage, tax-funded greening, open-spigot welfare, Obamacare — & now arbitrary gun control & “immigration reform” — has been overwhelming. Even among Democrats in Congress, it is hard to buy majorities for any of those things. But Americans voted to get it all, & get it hard.Read more here: http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/2013/01/22/at-the-twilights-last/Why? Because they liked Obama better than they liked Romney. In fact, after one billion dollars of media effort (plus ten-billion-worth that was free), the Democrat machine was able to convince Americans that they didn’t like Romney at all. He murders people, & his running mate pushed his own grandma off the cliff in her wheelchair. That’s the sort of message that goes to the heart of The People. Whereas, public policy leaves them yawning. Axelrod & the boys got this: they know voters are stupid, & they proved it.
I myself loved the old “exceptionalist” America, for all its theological flaws; for all its strange trinity of “We the People,” & “In God We Trust,” & “E Pluribus Unum.” Moreover, I know how I feel about the destruction of my own Dominion of Canada. I am not being cute or insincere in expressing my heartbreak, to see that old United States of America likewise die, leaving a desiccated shell. As an old Loyalist, it was my country, too: the same language, the same fundamental attitudes shared by Loyalist & Patriot alike. The same pioneering spirit; the same self-reliance. The same egalitarianism, of an older kind: the kind that looked your neighbour in the eye; that looked your woman in the eye; that looked your children in the eyes. There was so much noble in that old America, replaced now in this “new era” with bullshit & sleaze.
But everything in this world must go, into that trash heap of history. “O dark dark dark, they all go into the dark, the vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant.” And shining in that dark is Christ, whose Kingdom is not of this world. And nobility, too, is not of this world; is unkillable, & will take new forms. And consider: the last fond hope of the Enlightenment has now gone under the hill. That leaves us nothing to rebuild, but Christendom.
Open season on Christians in the Middle East; how democracy is used to legitimate tyranny
David Warren writes,
So much has happened, especially in Egypt over the last half year. But nothing new has happened. The Muslim Brotherhood continue to consolidate their power, & by now President Morsi, who quickly gathered to himself as much power as President Mubarak had, has more. His constitutional coup, confirmed by low-turnout quick referendum, provides a wonderful illustration of how democracy is used to legitimate tyranny, all neatly ordered in a short sprint of time. Too, how it can be used to befuddle Western statesmen, who will grant a pass to anything that is arguably “freely elected.”Read more here: http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/2013/01/26/apocalyptic-egypt/Throughout the Middle East, as Islamists come to power, or merely into a position to terrorize, ancient Christian communities are put to flight. They don’t leave casually; they leave because their homes & businesses & churches are firebombed, & their walls are decorated with slogans to communicate, “You’re next!” Most of Iraq’s million-&-a-half Christians are now gone; Syria’s Christians have started their exodus in anticipation of Assad’s fall. With the advance of Islamism throughout the Muslim world (including Bosnia & Albania), it becomes open season on them everywhere.
I fear that the fate of the Copts will be worse, than that of others who got a head start on them, & behind whom the doors now close. There are just too many Copts for the West to assimilate, given shrinking immigration quotas everywhere: something in the order of 10 million Christians, in a country of 80 million Muslims, actually hungry for Shariah & becoming unhinged by the Islamist propaganda.
But back to the Coptic Christians of Egypt. They have no place to go; & they are being demonized. Wherever the slightest altercation occurs between a Muslim & a Christian in rural Egypt, a massacre of Christians is quite likely to follow. The Copts are among the poorest of Egypt, but also among the richest: resentment for the latter, & avarice for their wealth, provides meat to the demagogues in a culture already accustomed to blaming “the other” for every domestic failure.
And of course, the Egyptian economy, such as it was, has been disintegrating since the Arab Spring began. It is a country without oil money to fall back on; & now without tourism, or any other way to earn the foreign currency it needs to import basic foodstuffs, as well as fuel & the luxuries to which its elites have become accustomed; a country whose limited stock of arable land is already dangerously over-burdened; which is approaching ecological catastrophe on several fronts. The Nile Valley, since the Aswan dam, no longer benefits from the replenishment of soil; the great river now only washes it away. (That, & not global warming, accounts for the accelerating recession of the Mediterranean coast: the Nile Delta is gradually dissolving.)
Someone must be blamed, & since Nasser, there have been no Jews left to kill. This leaves the Koran-denying Copts for the historical role of scapegoat. Lord have mercy on them.
"Vive la France?"
France's fast moving military offensive in Mali is being greeted happily by many residents of Mali. It seems that Islamist rule was not much fun. One 26-year-old Malian student was quoted in the New York Times lamenting:
“No smoking, no music, no girlfriends. We couldn’t do anything fun.”
However, Max Boot warns at Commentary,
The French troops are currently in the “clear” phase of their counterinsurgency campaign, but unless they stick around for follow-on “clear and hold” operations, their initial gains are likely to prove fleeting. The Islamist guerrillas are retreating so they can fight another day. Stopping them from coming back is going to prove, at least for the short term, beyond the capabilities of the African military forces on the ground. Either France stays and helps to do the job itself or the cheers its troops are now hearing will soon turn to jeers.
Read more here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/28/iraqs-lessons-for-france-in-mali/#more-817256
Drones violate the human rights of terrorists!
Well, this is not surprising:
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has announced an inquiry into the use of drones in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and the Palestinian Territories, and whether drones violate international law. The inquiry comes at the request of Russia, China, and Pakistan, a triad of countries not known for their concern about human rights. That Syria is not also a co-sponsor is probably an oversight on the part of the UN.So writes Michael Rubin in Commentary. Read more here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/28/will-human-rights-activists-make-war-more-deadly/#more-817201
The truth shall set us free
Is moderation a bad word in politics? Peter Wehner writes at Commentary of a book entitled On Moderation: Defending an Ancient Virtue in a Modern World, by Harry Clor. Clor writes that immoderation
“is characterized by a one-sided or absolute commitment to a good that is in fact only one good among several.”
Wehner writes,
Professor Clor goes on to warn that we should want politics that incorporates moderation and “you should be quite afraid of any leaders, movements, or polities wholly lacking them.”I quite agree, and while there is a danger that one can be frozen because of the inability to decide on the merits of competing claims, the greater danger faced by most of us is more nearly the opposite: acting as if every course of action we have chosen is obvious and enlightened and could only be opposed by knaves or fools; and that every decision should be viewed as a zero-sum proposition, with all the arguments favoring one side (ours) and disfavoring the other. We go in search of data and studies that reinforce our preexisting views and ignore (or dismiss) the others. It’s of course easy to see these tendencies in others, and much harder to see them in ourselves.
“Willingness to entertain doubts is a moderating virtue when it reminds me, before I launch into some totalistic commitment, that there is more than one viewpoint or consideration to take into account,” Clor writes. “Moderation is intertwined with humility of a sort, the kind of humility that keeps us aware of our inevitable limitations – that we are all limited beings, limited in our capacity to master the unavoidable uncertainties and contingencies of life.”
This is something thinkers from Aristotle to Montaigne to Burke to Lincoln to C.S. Lewis understood, in one way or another; and it’s an insight all of us, of every political persuasion, would be wise to reacquaint ourselves with. Because moderation and humility, rightly understood, will help us to better ascertain the truth of things. And in politics, like life more generally, the truth shall set us free.
Read more here: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/29/the-virtue-of-moderation/#more-817384
How to get a better return on your investments
Need a better investment strategy? Hire a woman to invest your money! So says a piece in co.EXIST:
Male hedge fund managers, watch out for your jobs: a new report from financial services firm Rothstein Kass has revealed that female hedge fund managers significantly outperform their male counterparts. In the third quarter of 2012, they scored a net return of 8.95% (according to the Rothstein Kass Women in Alternative Investments Hedge Index) compared to a 2.69% net return overall on the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index. But at the same time, women make up less than 20% of all C-suite members in the firms polled. Not enough people have yet woken up to the fact that it makes sense to hire more women in senior positions.“The fact that women-owned or managed hedge funds have been able to handily outperform their male counterparts is not particularly surprising,” said Meredith Jones, the study author, in an interview with Business Insider. “There have been a number of studies that show women investors to be more risk adverse, and therefore potentially better able to escape market downturns and volatility.” The report goes on to say: "… if women do in fact have a different, more risk-averse investing profile, then at least theoretically, their returns, particularly in difficult markets, should be higher than those of their male counterparts." And that seems to be what’s happening.
Read more here: http://www.fastcoexist.com/mba/1681284/need-a-better-investment-strategy-listen-to-a-woman
Monday, January 28, 2013
Protecting the Innocent
Senator Rand Paul continues his campaign for President by giving a speech to thousands of people who marched in Washington in the past week on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
CNS News has the video here: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/rand-paul-right-and-wrong-have-become-subservient-hedonism-moment
Killing Bacteria
Maybe your unwashed reusable grocery bag won't kill me after all!
Read more here: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681264/this-new-gel-could-mean-the-end-of-drug-resistant-bacteria
Now you can share your every move with the world!
Are you a narcissist? I have the perfect gift for you: the MeCam! Yes, you can own your very own drone, that follows you around and shoots video, which it then can stream to your smart phone. Other features include 14 sensors that keep it hovering safely, voice control, and a video stabilization system. A company named Always Innovating says it could potentially be available "by the beginning of 2014" at a $49 price point.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/you-may-soon-be-able-to-buy-your-own-drone-for-only-50-2013-1#ixzz2JIh72phs
Why Obama chose Hagel
Is Obama wrong to say in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech,
“The instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause, to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious” — Churchill had called it that — “and we must never trumpet it as such. So part of our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary and war at some level is an expression of human folly.”Bob Woodward says the above quote from Obama's speech is probably the best definition of Obama's doctrine on war. Woodward says that Obama has found a soul mate in Chuck Hagel, who Woodward says visited Obama soon after his first inauguration and advised Obama to avoid quagmires like Afghanistan and to be leery of advice he was getting from the Pentagon. Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-why-obama-picked-hagel-for-defense-secretary/2013/01/27/b87eb8ce-68ae-11e2-af53-7b2b2a7510a8_story.html
German billionaires
China's "acutely fragile" banking system
The photo above is of people in China trying to get in to a job fair. There is a story today in Business Insider claiming that China's banking system is "acutely fragile," because China has created too much credit too fast.
So the U.S. is not the only one?
Read more here: http://www.businessinsider.com/gmo-chinas-credit-system-vulnerability-2013-1
Massive Explosion Inside Iranian Nuclear Facility
His jaw hit the floor
Hillary Clinton is not the only one who is planning to run for President in 2016. This morning in my in-box, there was an email from Senator Rand Paul. He was writing on behalf of the National Rifle Association, asking me to donate to the NRA. He says his jaw hit the floor when he read the provisions of Senator Feinstein's bill, which are
Ban the sale, transfer, importation, and manufacturing of 120 specifically named rifles, shotguns and handguns!
*** Ban the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of ALL firearms with a detachable magazine and at least one "military characteristic" -- which could mean just about anything that makes a gun "look scary;"
*** Ban the sale, transfer, importation, and manufacturing of magazines holding more than 10 rounds;
*** Force owners of ALL "grandfathered" weapons to undergo an intrusive background check and fingerprinting -- treating law-abiding citizens like criminals;
*** Force owners of ALL "grandfathered" weapons to federally register their guns after obtaining a permission slip from local law enforcement showing their guns are not in violation of state or local law.
The 2016 race has begun.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Eugenics, Genocidal Racism
Eugenics. What is it? Wikipedia defines it as
a social philosophy which advocates for the improvement of human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of more desired people and traits, and the reduction of reproduction of less desired people and traits.[4]At its peak of popularity eugenics was supported by a wide variety of prominent people, including Winston Churchill,[40] Margaret Sanger,[41][42] Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Linus Pauling[43] and Sidney Webb.[44][45][46] Many members of the American Progressive Movement supported eugenics, enticed by its scientific trappings and its promise to cure social ills.[citation needed] Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was, however, Adolf Hitler who praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States.[47]
Margaret Sanger, "heroine" of Planned Parenthood, was one of its most ardent supporters. Anchoress cites these quotes from Ms. Sanger here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page
We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.All of our problems are the result of overbreeding among the working class, and if morality is to mean anything at all to us, we must regard all the changes which tend toward the uplift and survival of the human race as moral.
Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
Read more here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2013/01/24/sangers-racist-genocidal-plans-and-the-masque-of-the-red-death/
Did you know that
Planned Parenthood personnel have aborted over 5,300,000 children since 1970. That’s equal to the entire population of Colorado. In 2009, 97.6 percent of Planned Parenthood’s “services" for pregnant women involved killing their children, and only 2.4 percent involved prenatal care or adoption referral. http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/things_planned_parenthoods_tru.html VISIT
We are paying a price
Who knew? President Obama is a skeet shooter!
Virtually Identical?
Thought for today from Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight:
As members of the same human species, you and I share all but 0.01% (1/100th of 1%) of identical genetic sequences. So biologically, as a species, you and I are virtually identical to one another at the level of our genes (99.9%).
If you say so, Dr. Taylor. But that .01% sure seems to loom large much of the time.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Branding and re-branding
Branding. Did you know that the Coke brand is worth $78 billion dollars? Did you know that Campus Crusade for Christ has a new brand: "Cru"? "Liberal" which once was a term that stood for individual rights and a wide-ranging education, has now become a discredited term, due to the failure of the Great Society programs, and to the popularity of Rush Limbaugh. Democrats now prefer the term "progressive."
But, as the blogger at To Put It Bluntly writes,
Re-branding is a limited remedy. Ultimately, products – whether Coke, causes, or candidates – succeed on their own intrinsic merits, not through their brand names.
Read more here: http://toputitbluntly.com/2013/01/20/re-branding-for-coke-causes-and-candidates/#more-13
Killers
Are guns among the ten biggest killers in the United States? Yes, they are number ten!
Found here: http://www.bookwormroom.com/2013/01/23/undaunted-by-slow-progress-i-continue-to-empty-my-spindle-aka-my-email-backlog/
Bananas in Burundi
The difference between cool and reality
Mark Steyn imagines the next President taking the oath of office:
it fell to the 45th president-in-waiting to encapsulate the ethos of the age in one deft sound bite: What difference does it make? Hillary Clinton’s instantly famous riposte at the Benghazi hearings is such a perfect distillation that it surely deserves to be the national motto of the United States. They should put it on Paul Krugman’s trillion-dollar coin, and in the presidential oath:Read more here: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338863/obama-simulacrum-mark-steyn“Do you solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States?”
“Sure. What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Well, it’s the difference between cool and reality — and, as Hillary’s confident reply appeared to suggest, and the delirious media reception of it confirmed, reality comes a poor second in the Obama era. The presumption of conservatives has always been that one day cold, dull reality would pierce the klieg-light sheen of Obama’s glamour. Indeed, that was the premise of Mitt Romney’s reductive presidential campaign. But, just as Beyoncé will always be way cooler than some no-name operatic soprano or a male voice choir, so Obama will always be cooler than a bunch of squaresville yawneroos boring on about jobs and debt and entitlement reform. Hillary’s cocksure sneer to Senator Johnson of Wisconsin made it explicit. At a basic level, the “difference” is the difference between truth and falsity, but the subtext took it a stage further: No matter what actually happened that night in Benghazi, you poor sad loser Republicans will never succeed in imposing that reality and its consequences on this administration.
And so a congressional hearing — one of the famous “checks and balances” of the American system — is reduced to just another piece of Beltway theater. “The form was still the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled,” as Gibbon wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But he’s totally uncool, too. So Hillary lip-synced far more than Beyoncé, and was adored for it. “As I have said many times, I take responsibility,” she said. In Washington, the bold declarative oft-stated acceptance of responsibility is the classic substitute for responsibility: rhetorically “taking responsibility,” preferably “many times,” absolves one from the need to take actual responsibility even once.
In the very same self-serving testimony, the secretary of state denied that she’d ever seen the late Ambassador Stevens’s cables about the deteriorating security situation in Libya on the grounds that “1.43 million cables come to my office”– and she can’t be expected to see all of them, or any. She is as out of it as President Jefferson, who complained to his secretary of state James Madison, “We have not heard from our ambassador in Spain for two years. If we have not heard from him this year, let us write him a letter.” Today, things are even worse. Hillary has apparently not heard from any of our 1.43 million ambassadors for four years. When a foreign head of state receives the credentials of the senior emissary of the United States, he might carelessly assume that the chap surely has a line of communication back to the government he represents. For six centuries or so, this has been the minimal requirement for functioning inter-state relations. But Secretary Clinton has just testified that, in the government of the most powerful nation on earth, there is no reliable means by which a serving ambassador can report to the cabinet minister responsible for foreign policy. And nobody cares: What difference does it make?
Are we just whiners and complainers?
Conservatives have a profound storytelling deficit, yet all we do is whine and complain about it. It’s part of our DNA, our whining about the culture, as if we’re incapable of reverse-engineering the Left’s success.Read more here: http://www.bookwormroom.com/2013/01/25/a-man-with-a-renaissance-mind-envisions-a-resurgent-republican-party-with-a-strong-popular-narrative/
All tall people look alike
Looking down their noses
Bill Clinton warns Democrats not to look down their noses at gun owners. Then, of course, Bill Clinton looks down his nose at gun owners. From the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web column:
Politico reports:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323485704578257942971371234.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_hClinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.
"Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them," Clinton said.
"A lot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things," Clinton said. "I know because I come from this world." . . .
He said that he understands the culture that permeates a state like Arkansas--where guns are a longstanding part of local culture.
"A lot of these people . . . all they've got is their hunting and their fishing," he told the Democratic financiers. "Or they're living in a place where they don't have much police presence. Or they've been listening to this stuff for so long that they believe it all."
Oh, these people, these poor misguided hicks! All they've got is their hunting and their fishing! Clinton isn't doing a very good job of following his own advice not to "look down your nose at them," is he?
It's strikingly reminiscent of Barack Obama's notorious 2008 musings on "some of these small towns in Pennsylvania and . . . the Midwest": "It's not surprising . . . that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Stonewalling on Benghazi
We should not forget that there still are some journalists working in the mainstream media. On Tuesday, CBS's Sharyl Attkisson broke on Twitter that the Obama administration "has indicated that it will not be answering Benghazi question we've been asking since Oct." Attkisson, who has provided hard-hitting reporting on the September 11, 2012 Islamist attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, listed many of the questions that the executive branch has yet to answer about the story, writes Matthew Balan at Newsbusters
.Balan writes, however, that
It should be pointed out that Attkisson hasn't reported on the Benghazi story on the air since the November 23, 2012 edition of CBS This Morning, according to a search on Nexis. It will be interesting to see if the questions she revealed on Twitter will make it on the network's morning or evening newscasts.
Attkinson writes,
The journalist noted in a later Tweet that "CBS News FOI'd Benghazi info from State Dept, CIA, FBI and Defense Dept. None has been provided." Attkisson also pointed out a false claim by the administration:Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2013/01/22/cbss-attkisson-obama-admin-has-stonewalled-benghazi-october#ixzz2J6RxCkGN
Additionally, CBS News has repeatedly requested the promised surveillance video from Benghazi but it has not been provided. We've also asked for any White House photos taken that night, as well as an accounting of Pres. Obama's decisions and actions. None has been provided....At a press conference 11/14/12, President Obama stated that his Admin. has provided all info regarding 'what happened in Benghazi.'
The CBS correspondent posted some of the questions that the Obama White House has failed to answer in 22 consecutive Tweets:
What time was Ambassador's Stevens' body recovered, what are the known details surrounding his disappearance and death, including where he/his body was taken/found/transported and by whom?
Who made the decision not to convene the Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) the night of the Benghazi attacks?
We understand that convening the CSG a protocol under Presidential directive ("NSPD-46"). Is that true? If not, please explain. [If] so, why was the protocol not followed? Is the Administration revising the applicable Presidential directive? If so, please explain.
Who is the highest-ranking official who was aware of pre-911 security requests from US personnel in Libya?
Who is/are the official(s) responsible for removing reference to al-Qaeda from the original CIA notes?
Was the President aware of Gen. Petraeus' potential problems prior to Thurs., Nov. 8, 2012? And What was the earliest that any White House official was aware? Please provide details.
What is your response to the President stating that on Sept. 12, he called 911 a terrorist attack, in light of his CBS interview on that date in which he answered that it was too early to know whether it was a terrorist attack?
The Administration has stated there were no resources outside Libya that could arrive in Benghazi/N. Africa within 8 hrs on Sept. 11, 2012. Why wouldn't there be and who would have made that decision to leave the area so open on the anniversary of 9/11? And Does this mean that the Administration would have used them if available?
Is anyone being held accountable for having no resources close enough to reach this high-threat area within 8+ hours on Sept. 11, and has the Administration taken steps to have resources available sooner in case of emergency in the future?
A Benghazi victim's family member stated that Mrs. Clinton told him she would find and arrest whoever made the anti-Islam video. Is this accurate? If so, what was Mrs. Clinton's understanding at the time of what would be the grounds for arrest?
The Administration is reported to have asked that the anti-Islamist YouTube video initially blamed in Benghazi be removed from YouTube. If true, what is the Administration's view regarding other videos or future material that it may wish were not published, but are legal? What is the Administration's criteria in general for requesting removal of a YouTube or other Internet video?
Will he succeed?
The Clinton Logic
Peter Wehner is another writer who has something to say about Hillary Clinton's testimony.
As most people know by now, when Secretary of State Clinton was asked by Senator Ron Johnson about the Benghazi terror attack and the fact that the story we were told by the administration was false, Mrs. Clinton exploded.“With all due respect,” Hillary shouted, “the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans. What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Let’s be clear what Mrs. Clinton is saying. It really doesn’t matter whether the president and his advisers misled the public on the origins of a lethal terrorist attack that claimed four American lives, including the first ambassador murdered in more than 30 years. What matters, she insisted, is what we do going forward. There is no useful purpose to be served by dwelling on the past. Get over it. Move on. Chill out.
What a perfectly post-modern approach to things. For Mrs. Clinton, like her husband, truth seems to have no intrinsic worth. It’s an instrument to be used in the quest to gain and maintain power. If people have to manipulate the truth, ignore it, or roll their eyes at it in order to maintain “political viability” (to use an infamous phrase from her husband), then so be it. If misleading the public is necessary to help a president prevail in a bitter election—well, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. That, at least, is the Clinton logic.
Having a president and his administration mislead the nation is problematic. How problematic depends on whether the story was intentionally misleading or not. That is the difference between a mistake and a lie. And I’m not prepared to say the president and his administration lied. What I am prepared to say is that the Obama administration misled us. That is serious enough. And for Mrs. Clinton to simply wave that off with a dismissive and aggressive outburst offers us a disturbing (if not altogether unsurprising) insight into her worldview.
What difference does it make?
A lot, actually.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/24/hillary-clintons-postmodernism/
Gross negligence and mismanagement
Peter Kirsanow writes at The Corner a tale of two Secretaries:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/338764/tale-two-secretaries-peter-kirsanow#When the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal broke, there was outrage among members of the press, Congress, and the public at large. Secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld was excoriated — and not just by Democrats – when he testified about prisoner abuse before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Numerous Democrats called for his resignation. A general was demoted and nearly a dozen soldiers were court martialed and sentenced to prison. The New York Times ran front page stories on Abu Ghraib for 32 consecutive days.
Fast forward a few years. Four Americans are dead because the State Department provided insufficient security to the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, despite numerous warnings and pleas for help — including directly to the secretary of state herself. A false story is promoted by the administration as to the nature of the attack on the consulate — a story that just happens to serve the administration’s electoral narrative. Any outrage about the debacle is not on the part of the mainstream press — indeed, the New York Times can barely be troubled to mention it. When Secretary Clinton testifies about Benghazi before two congressional committees, Senators Johnson and Paul are excoriated for daring to point out the State Department’s gross negligence and mismanagement leading to the Americans’ deaths. As for the others, congressional Democrats heap praise on the secretary. Not a single person is fired and the perpetrators are roaming free. And when the person ultimately responsible for this debacle is asked about the impetus behind the attack, she replies, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” And her reply is cheered by many in the mainstream media.
What would the reaction have been had Rumsfeld, in response to a question about how Abu Ghraib had occurred, said, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Yep.
Fall forward!
Ann Voskamp reminds us at A Holy Experience what her daughter's piano "adjudicator" taught her about making music.
“We are all going to botch it some days. We all sometimes get the notes wrong. But the song only goes wrong when we keep thinking back to the wrong notes.”Read more here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2013/01/life-plan-day-planner-sanity-manifesto-printable/“When a piece starts to fall apart — fall forward. Fall forward into the next bar. Moving forward is what makes music.“
Failing? What feels likes losing is really gaining experience. Forward!
Falling apart? Fall into whatever. comes. next. Forward!
Fearful? Fear is always the first step of faith. Forward!
Whenever you are lost, forward is always the way Home.
"A gigantic demerit on her record as Secretary of State"
Dick Morris, who worked with the Clintons for twenty years, says Hillary is first and foremost a bureaucrat. Morris talks about the lies and cover-up. Did Morris get thrown under a bus by Hillary? I seem to remember something about a prostitute and toe-sucking.
Go here to view his brief summary: http://www.dickmorris.com/hillary-unveiled-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
In the Morris video above he refers to a video he did the day before. In it he points out that Hillary was evasive, and the Senators, for the most part, let her get away with it. She claimed not to have been involved in formulating a response. She claimed she wasn't asked about the security issues. The President wanted a light footprint in Libya. He didn't want to appear to be an army of conquest. Her testimony was "complete obfuscation designed to avert perjury." She knew the facts. She willfully ignored the truth and went along with Obama's cover-up.
Go here to view the other Morris video: http://www.dickmorris.com/hillary-gets-softball-questions-gives-evasive-replies-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/
Friday, January 25, 2013
Ya jest have to learn to obfuscate, Senator Paul!
Senator Rand Paul asks John Kerry some good questions.
I wish my hair looked as good as John Kerry's. What do you suppose his secret is? Does Heinz make vinegar, too, or just ketchup?
Paul is right about the Constitution. Paul is right about it being unwise not to send 20 fighter jets (and 2 billion dollars) to a man who calls Jews blood-sucking descendants of pigs and apes. Paul is right about freeing the doctor who helped us find Bin Laden.
But, John Kerry tells Senator Paul that "not everything lends itself to simple clarity." You just haven't been in the Senate long enough to learn to obfuscate, Senator Paul.
Plastic bag bans are making us sick
The study, by Jonathan Klick of University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Property and Environment Research Center and Joshua D. Wright of the George Mason University School of Law, found that in jurisdictions where plastic bags were banned saw ER visits increase by about one-fourth, with a similar increase in deaths compared with neighboring counties where the bags remained legal. Basically people were schlepping leaky packages of meat and other foods in their canvas bags, then wadding to the bags somewhere for awhile, leaving bacteria to grow until the next trip, when they tossed celery or other foods likely to be eaten raw in the same bags.http://reason.com/blog/2013/01/24/are-plastic-bag-bans-making-us-sick
"What they are protecting is themselves"
I have noticed a subtle shift in emphasis in Rush Limbaugh's broadcast excellence. I used to think he was the most dyed-in-the-wool Republican. Recently, though, he seems more often to lump Democrats and Republicans together in something he calls "the ruling class."
This was perhaps, folks, one of the best illustrations of the whole concept that we've spoken here about on numerous occasions of the ruling class, the political class. It doesn't matter what party, they're all part of the ruling class, the political class in DC, and when the rubber hits the road, they all circle the wagons around each other. Well, the Republicans join in circling the wagons. The Democrats never do when it's a Republican involved, but for the most part they do. They close ranks, and they protect one another because what they're protecting is themselves.They're protecting the ruling class, the political elites, and they're maintaining the status quo.
Read more here: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/01/23/the_cleansing_of_mrs_clinton_s_record
Thursday, January 24, 2013
A carefully prepared histrionic rant
Daniel Greenfield writes that Hillary Clinton gave a
carefully prepared histrionic rant which can be summed up, "I do care a lot" and "None of this was my fault" and "What difference at this point does it make?"The last isn't a sarcastic restatement. It's what she actually said.
Read more here: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/01/all-difference-in-world.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews%20%28from%20NY%20to%20Israel%20Sultan%20Reveals%20The%20Stories%20Behind%20the%20News%29
What the American people are allowing
Neo-Neocon writes that
among voters 65 and older, Romney won 56% to 44%). But Hillary is correct; to most voters, Benghazi, and a host of other things that used to be considered important, make no difference at all.Read more here: http://neoneocon.com/2013/01/24/what-difference-does-it-make/One reason, which may seem somewhat paradoxical but really is not, is widespread cynicism. If the public doesn’t expect integrity or truth from what used to be called our public servants (what a quaint phrase!), then lies and strategic stonewalling will not bother most people at all. What matters is what those public servants can get for you, and what they can scare you into thinking the opposition will take away from you (tampons, anyone?)
Another big factor at work here is our decades-long education in moral relativism. What is truth, and can it be determined? Way way too many people answer “no,” and so they’ve given up trying or caring. And if they don’t care, why should our public officials answer inopportune and potentially embarrassing questions? No; what’s important is feelings, and so it made perfect sense for Hillary to act as though the best way to show concern about the deaths in Benghazi was to raise her voice in frustration and anger at the questions and cite her determination to “figure out what happened,” rather than actually exhibit that determination by answering questions about her own possible negligence in fostering conditions that may have contributed to those deaths. As for the subsequent cover-up of the reasons for the deaths, she’s implying that it’s just political business as usual, no biggee. And most Americans will nod, if they’re paying attention at all.
This administration has been stonewalling right from the start on whatever it just doesn’t feel like answering. Although previous administrations have done a little bit of that here and there, with Obama it is his recurrent m.o., made possible by the MSM’s abdication of its traditional role as questioner and challenger, and its adoption of the mantle of enabler.
A terrible development, to be sure. But it would not be possible if the American people didn’t allow it.
What are we going to do about the media?
Ace writes that fusion has occurred. The media and government have fully and seamlessly fused their powers. One of Ace's commenters wrote
The true source of Obama's power is completely overlooked (or willfully ignored) by the GOP, perhaps because it is too terrifying to contemplate, too awesome to engage: that he has completely removed an investigative and anti-authoritarian media (in Mencken's famous adage, one committed in part "to afflicting the comfortable") from the political dynamic. Obama operates with the most massive propaganda arm ever been seen in modern history. He is essentially invulnerable. At no point did Romney/Ryan come close to addressing this sick truth so dangerous to our society and freedoms. Nor do any other Republicans. Breitbart alone found expression for his moral outrage and developed a plan of counter-attack. Since he died, however, the game has gone back to carping and chronicling "media bias." We need a battle plan.
Read more here: http://minx.cc/?post=336869
Update: Bill Whittle, Steve Green, and Scott Ott agree with Ace:
Your turn, John
Today it is John Kerry's turn to testify. Haven't we already heard his testimony?
Oh well, as Hillary yelled yesterday, "What difference does it make?"
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Willful blindness
Pamela Geller: "What difference does it make?" All the difference in the world, and herein lies the problem. The reason our people were killed and continue to be slaughtered is because of jihad. And this willful blindness puts us all at risk. And note Hillary's use of the word "militants." They are terrorists, dhimmi, jihadists.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/01/unhinged-clinton-what-difference-does-it-make-why-americans-were-killed-.html
Cleansed
The one and only Rush Limbaugh:
And what difference does it make whether there was a video or not. Who the hell is bringing that up now? They went for a full hour-and-a-half, by the way, before anybody asked about the video. And the video, for weeks, was the sole reason given why Benghazi went up in flames. The video was the reason why there were four Americans killed.The producer of the video is still in jail in California on some phony, trumped up charge, bank fraud or whatever. And yet an hour-and-a-half, maybe hour and 20 minutes, but certainly the first hour went by, there wasn't one question about it. And then Senator Johnson finally got to the question, "What difference does it make? What are we talking about here? What difference does it make? It's old news." And that's been the Clinton MO for decades.
So what was happening here was the cleansing of Mrs. Clinton's record in advance of her presidential run in 2016, setting her up. Folks, this was banana republic kind of stuff. You talk about two different worlds in isolation. The ruling class, the political class, existing within its own borders, and its own world, and its own set of rules and taking care of each other and making sure that everything is fine. This is a perfunctory hearing. We had to get it out of the way, waiting for Mrs. Clinton to testify. She's been so devoted to the secretary of state job. She got sick. She's given so much to her country. She got sick. She got really bad sick, stomachache, flu. She was sniffling, blowing her nose. She had a sore throat, was really bad.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/01/23/the_cleansing_of_mrs_clinton_s_record
http://americandigest.org/
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
We want to know
Pamela Geller writes at Atlas Shrugs about tomorrow's testimony by Hillary Clinton on Benghazi.
Neither flu nor virus nor concussion of the haid stays this dissembler from the not-so-swift testimony of the Obama administration's abject failure in Libya.http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/C-SPAN3 will telecast Secretary of State Clinton's Benghazi testimony tomorrow Wednesday the 23, January 2013 From 9 to 11:30 (EDT)
I expect that Clinton will lie. Profusely. She is a liar. Her husband is a liar. She lives a lie. But this is hardly a game, and national security is a stake. This is her last act as the less than stellar Secretary of State. Legislators must get to the bottom of the epic failures of Benghazi that led to murder of our Ambassador and three US attaches.
Obama's foreign policy failures are without equal.
We want to know what policy was in effect that led to the sanction of the very jihadists who attacked and murdered our people.
We want to know we gave the order to stand down and not respond to the four desperate calls for help from our security on the ground.
We want to know where is the statecraft behind Obama's support of the ouster and brutal rape and murder of Qaddafi that led to the jihad takeover of Mali and their agitation in Chad, Niger, Darfur, and Nigeria.
We want to know how weapons we supplied to jihadists in Libya wound up in the hands of jihadists in Algeria who took hundreds hostage, leading to the death of 81.
We want to know how Obama could declare that Al Qaeda was vanquished when it flies in the face of the increased and more lethal attacks worldwide.
We want to know if the State Department is engaged in negotiations to release the mastermind behind the WTC bombing in 93, a demand by the jihadists in Algeria, Libya and Egypt (including Muslim Brotherhood Morsi).
We want to know why SoS Clinton blamed the attacks on our embassies in Cairo and Libya in 911 on freedom of expression (a youtube video) when there was no proof to this ficticious contention. Why deceive the American people? To what end?