#1
A snippet from the article. You decide if the author is being paranoid or not because I don't know enough background to make any kind of informed decision.
There are other ways in which the story that Stroilovs and Bukovskys papers tell isnt over. They suggest, for example, that the architects of the European integration project, as well as many of todays senior leaders in the European Union, were far too close to the USSR for comfort. This raises important questions about the nature of contemporary Europequestions that might be asked when Americans consider Europe as a model for social policy, or when they seek European diplomatic cooperation on key issues of national security.
#2
I may be paranoid, but I find this part easy to believe:
Bukovskys book about the story that these documents tell, Jugement à Moscou, has been published in French, Russian, and a few other Slavic languages, but not in English. Random House bought the manuscript and, in Bukovskys words, tried to force me to rewrite the whole book from the liberal left political perspective. Bukovsky replied that due to certain peculiarities of my biography I am allergic to political censorship. The contract was canceled, the book was never published in English, and no other publisher has shown interest in it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/13/2010 6:03 Comments ||
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#3
"In the worlds collective consciousness, the word Nazi is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis ideologynationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principleled directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history."
"No one talks much about the victims of Communism. No one erects memorials to the throngs of people murdered by the Soviet state. (In his widely ignored book, A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Alexander Yakovlev, the architect of perestroika under Gorbachev, puts the number at 30 to 35 million.)"
"We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about."
The author doesn't take it to the next step and ask "WHY?"
That is nearly as important as the fact of the whitewashing itself.
The left living in the West will never, ever teach about the atrocities of the Soviets or Red China and will contimue to teach that the only large atrocity of the 20th century was Naziism for two related reasons.
First, there is the need to present the narrative that people whose politics are left of center are perfect and incapable of doing anything wrong or evil. The notion that any person left of center could be wrong or evil leads to the conclusion that others with those politics or ideology could be, as well. And that thought simply cannot be permitted in the world of the left, in particular due to their inherent smugness and one of their base premises, which is that leftism is the ideology of perfection and utopia.
Secondly, the left fears the reductio ad absurdium game that they have played for decades with the center/right will be used on them in a turnabout-is-fair-play fashion. Since WWII, leftists, particularly in the field of education, have been indoctrinating millions of students to think that everyone whose politics are center/right is the same as Adolph Hitler. This is easy to do if you only teach about Nazi atrocities, and teach nothing about the Soviets or Chinese and their much larger campaigns of murder, rape, and oppression. This has been a hugely successful program, a quick look at almost any university or even highschool program in history shows that this is nearly universal. If the atrocities perpetrated by the far left were taught with equal vigor, then the same reductio arguments could be applied to people today whose politics were left of center. Since the overwhelming preponderance of educators are leftists, particularly at the college level, and since they are at least dimly aware that their guilt-by-association tactics could be used against themselves if students had knowledge of the facts regarding the atrocities of the left (which were ten or more times worse than those of the far right), they simply don't teach about the gulag or the Great Leap Forward etc.
As long as the education industry is populated by 90%+ far-left Democrats, the atrocities of the Soviets will never be taught in U.S. high schools and colleges. Today's educators are too afraid of the consequences of vast swathes of students knowing the truth about where leftist thought can lead.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/13/2010 6:04 Comments ||
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#4
I mean, why do you think the New York Times has never returned Duranty's Pulitzer?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/13/2010 6:10 Comments ||
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#7
For all the suppression of the true story of Communism in the 20th Century, its fascinating to what lengths and depths the usual suspects avoid using the word or tag of Socialism to their efforts, even though it is socialism, redistribution, and its attendant goals. You'd think they'd be proud to wear it on their sleeve with all its self righteousness and moral superiority they proclaim.
#13
Why is it that there are so many privileged useful idiots in the U.S. who embrace communism/socialism, e.g. Danny Glover, Sean Penn, Black Caucus, Jane Fonda, etc. Isn't this a bit hypocritical? Obviously, they have never read the bloodstained history of communism/socialism.
#16
Another excellent link is Doris Lessing's "Unexamined Mental Attitudes Left Behind by Communism" We did not have to identify with the Soviet Union, with its seventy-odd years of logic-chopping, of idiotic rhetoric, brutality, concentration camps, pogroms against the Jews. Again and again, failure. And, from our point of view, most important, the thousand mind-wriggling ways of defending failure.
#17
Compared to the Soviets, the Nazi's were amateurs.
Also, as I'm sure many of you have experienced, reading even a little of Alinsky makes me want to take to the streets and makes it clear how dangerous a time we live in.
This falls election and the 2012 elections are perhaps the most important of my lifetime IMO.
Posted by: Jefferson ||
05/13/2010 13:44 Comments ||
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#18
Damn, Joe, somebody found my hidden files.
That reminds me...I gotta shine up the old Pulitzer.
Posted by: The Ghost of Walter Duranty ||
05/13/2010 22:32 Comments ||
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What is most worrying about a possible North Korean collapse is that the key players in the region are not talking to each other, even informally, about such an eventuality. It's almost certain that these powers--China, the United States, Japan, South Korea and, possibly, Russia--have all drawn up their own contingency plans for Pyongyang's quick collapse. Obama's plan is to quickly claim credit for the collapse and blame any problems on someone else
However, they've done nothing to explore a collective response to what is without doubt a geopolitical game-changer.
As a result, many crucial questions remain unanswered. For instance, how should the United States and South Korea react if China sends combat troops into North Korea to conduct 'humanitarian assistance' missions? that's easy - express 'deep concern'
In all likelihood, Beijing will be tempted to do so if millions of refugees start fleeing into China. Which country will take the lead in securing nuclear materials? If the Chinese go there, it is theirs
How will China respond to the crossing of the 38th parallel by South Korean and US forces? Who will take the lead in reaching out to Pyongyang's post-Kim regime? What will be the collective security architecture after the Korean peninsula is reunified?
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/13/2010 09:49 ||
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#1
What would Saul Alinksy do?
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/13/2010 12:14 Comments ||
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#2
If the Chinese go there, it is theirs
Half of it probably already is. It might 'tactful' to not gripe about them 'securing' these items.
DA: "Mr. President, sir, I hate to pull you away from your regular golf game with Mr. Reggie Love but I just got word that the Communist regime in North Korea is in total collapse. Initial reports indicate that a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions is unfolding as we speak. To make matters worse, the Chinese have announced that they are sending in troops to provide order and security. How would you like to respond, sir?"
#4
There's a paradox at play. All told, only the Chinese can get in there fast enough to secure the Nork nukes. And if this could result in a puppet regime that would not make as much mess and fuss, maybe even lighten up a bit, so that aid would flow in, the Chinese would be happy about that.
However, anything beyond that would take a lot of negotiations with the US. And that won't happen until the shrimp pegs.
#5
I have to wonder if the Chin WANT NORK as it comes with a huge price tag in food, sorta like winning the lottery and finding you have to pay it all in Taxes, plus another hundred thousand or so.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/13/2010 22:53 Comments ||
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Recently growing attention has been given to US citizens who have joined the jihad in Pakistan. But the phenomenon is not limited to Americans. The story of the men from The Hague who turned up as tourists' on the Kenya-Somalia border in July 2009 is well known. Now stories are emerging of Dutch involvement in military action against NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Telegraaf today includes an article on a 21-year-old Dutch-German citizen, Danny R., who has recently been killed in Pakistan. The paper is quoting Der Spiegel, which itself received the information from the German BVD. Danny had chosen the path of radical Islam in Berlin and together with a group from the city travelled to Pakistan last September. So far six known Germans have been killed in fighting in the region, and there has been a lot of attention given to the online exploits of (presumed killed) Eric Breininger / Abdulgaffar El Almani. As the Telegraaf notes, Westerners are ideal not just as reinforcements but as propaganda material for online video clips, proof that the holy war is supported by the very same nationalities as the enemy NATO forces themselves. As yet, no Dutch citizens have appeared, but it may only be a matter of time.
The Telegraaf quotes an AIVD source that there are around 15 known Dutch jihadis in the region. Alongside this and the Kenya-Somalia case, there have been two Dutch killed in fighting in Kasmir and the arrest of Wesam al-D by US forces for his involvement in IED operations. In total, several tens of Dutch citizens are involved in jihadi activities in various locations. The chosen route for going abroad appears to be via Morocco, and from their to Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, or Pakistan. Others go to attend a madrassa in Egypt.
The concern of the security services is often not just related to what these individuals do in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Following training, they can as Dutch citizens return to the Netherlands, ready to answer the call for further action. However, the AIVD source claims that these Dutch jihadis cannot easily return to the Netherlands because they have been away too long and on return will be immediately arrested or put under permanent surveillance.'
This last comment is of course the most interesting, because it suggests an all-knowing intelligence and security service that has already identified the right suspects. It is above all a good confidence-building measure to show that the threat is completely covered and will be dealt with should that be necessary. The recent declarations that the AIVD needs to expand its operations abroad to track developments that may affect Dutch national security is not entirely at odds with this comment, but it does come close. For if the service is already so effective in tracking the main threats, it does raise a question why there is a need to expand its operations.
In this context it is interesting to read the AIVD's report for 2009 next to the equivalent report from the Military Intelligence and Security Service, the MIVD. As well as support for Dutch military operations abroad, the MIVD also produces threat analyses and investigates potential threats and the military forces from nations that could form a threat to the security of the Netherlands and the NATO area' (p. 11). In terms of the kind of war that is going on in South Asia, where the distinction between military and civilian forces ranged against NATO is not very clear, and the international range of these forces (from training camp to terrorist) is proven, it looks as if the MIVD already presents itself as the best prepared for tracking these developments. Whereas the AIVD report talks of cooperation with around 180 other services abroad, and close cooperation with around 30 of them, the MIVD report chronicles the activities of the service across all regions of the world, including Yemen and Somalia. In his recent critique of the AIVD's intention to expand its presence abroad, Bob de Graaff commented that competition between services can be useful for keeping each sharp' and services don't always have a monopoly in knowledge.' Of course, the resources of the AIVD outstrip the MIVD. But one does end up wondering where one service might end and the other might begin.
Frontpage Interview's guest today is Michael Carl, a veteran pastor and journalist who has written on terrorism, Islam and the persecuted church for WorldNetDaily.
FP: I would like to talk to you today about the interfaith dialogue' that Christians are engaged in with Muslims. It doesn't appear that Muslims have exactly the same objectives as Christians. What is happening here exactly?
Carl: The problem is that Christians enter these dialogue sessions with the idea that they're what the Muslim activists proposing them say are going to be. Christians are of course commanded by Christ to 'make disciples of all nations.' So it's commendable in a way that the Christians involved see the dialogues as an opportunity to evangelize to Muslims. But that's not the objective the Muslims have in mind. The CAIR sponsored groups that initiate the contacts have a desire to disinformation. They willingly present Islam Lite' to the unaware Christians in the audience. They speak of faithfulness to Allah, pilgrimages, doing charitable works and Christians just soak it up not knowing that there is a double edge on those Islamic terms and concepts.
FP: What is the double edge' on the Islamic terms and concepts that you raise?
Carl: I think the double edge' is the variance between the Islam Lite for the public and the real nature of what's really being advanced. A good example of this is Muslim writer Yahiya Emerick. Emerick has written, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Islam. This is his work that presents Islam Lite, the Islam is a religion of peace,' and all Muslims are not jihadists version. This is the book that presents Islam as, just like Christianity because they go to their mosque, have an Islamic version of Sunday School' for the kids, etc. Then there's Yahiya Emerick's textbook that he wrote for seventh grade students in Islamic schools. In this book, the chap who is an American convert to Islam, tells Muslim students that the Bible is a book of fables and myths, that jihad really means conquering infidels and that all Muslims have a duty to support jihad.
FP: Why is there such naiveté among Christians in this context?
Posted by: ed ||
05/13/2010 17:29 ||
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...the chap who is an American convert to Islam, tells Muslim students that the Bible is a book of fables and myths, that jihad really means conquering infidels and that all Muslims have a duty to support jihad.
Why is the naivete so pervasive--particularly when people like Eric Holder can't bring himself to even say "islam?" It is difficult even deciphering who Napolitano thinks is causing all the trouble. The MSM thinks the threats are from the Tea Party. So do these people think the threats to the country will go away if they are ignored?
The Beltway interpretation is that Bennett fell victim to the growing right-wing "extremism" of the Republican Party, fueled by those Huns, the Tea Partiers.
This is not an altogether crazy interpretation, but it is an insufficient one. It assumes that those who voted him out at the convention were irrational ideologues who cannot grasp their own interests.
Another way of looking at this is that the GOP rank and file are actually serious about what they say and don't use the same scorecard as Beltway denizens.
Which is more likely to elicit an irate Muslim response: 1) public cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, or 2) public proclamations that Muhammad was a bisexual, sometime transvestite and necrophile, who enjoyed sucking on the tongues of children, commanded a woman to breastfeed' an adult man, and advised believers to drink his urine for salutary health?
#1
Islam, emotional, childish, and while millions starve and dies in the name of Allah, their leaders focus on cartoonists. Imagine if our enemies were actuall cometent? Frightening.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/13/2010 19:14 Comments ||
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The debate about the Times Square bomb plot has focused, so far, on what happened after Faisal Shahzad's detonator fizzled. Should Congress make marginal changes to Miranda procedures, and the like? The more urgent question in our view is why Shahzad wasn't stopped before he parked his SUV on West 45th Street.
Our national conversation would be very different had that bomb exploded in the heart of Manhattan, yet little attention has focused on this larger apparent intelligence failure. Specifically, why didn't U.S. surveillance pick up Shahzad's intentions on his many trips to Pakistan? And was this failure at all related to restrictions imposed on wiretapping by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the 1978 law that has been tightened on terrorist surveillance thanks to howling by the anti-antiterror left?
***
While the evidence is heavily classified, what we have learned so far gives cause for concern. Shahzad was arrested on May 3, some 53 hours after his car bomb was discovered, and in short order Obama Administration officials were making very specific claims about his history and terror links.
Counterterrorism chief John Brennan confirmed in a May 10 interview that Shahzad had "extensive interaction" with the Pakistani Taliban, including bomb-making training in Waziristan. Pakistani authorities detained multiple suspects in connection with the plot, including two men who had apparently conspired with Shahzad during a five-month visit that ended in February. These arrests occurred only hours after Shahzad was apprehended on the JFK tarmac.
While Shahzad cooperated with interrogators, the speed of the investigation and the level of detail made public suggest that the Administration may possess additional corroborating evidence. Was Shahzad surveilled prior to his capture, or were intelligence officials able retroactively to reconstruct his activities from other already-gathered foreign wiretaps?
At a Senate hearing three days after Shahzad's arrest, New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg asked Eric Holder if any federal agencies were "looking at this fellow prior to the attempted bombing." The Attorney General declined to answer, though he did reveal that "we're in the process of looking at indices, files, and to see exactly what we knew about this gentleman and when we knew it."
Mr. Lautenberg's question is important for many reasons, not least because U.S. intelligence-gathering capability has been substantially curtailed in stages over the last decade. Via executive order after 9/11, the Bush Administration created the covert Terrorist Surveillance Program. TSP allowed the National Security Agency to monitor the traffic and content of terrorist electronic communications overseas, unencumbered by FISA warrants even if one of the parties was in the U.S.
While the Administration rightly believed this critical national-security tool was lawful, internal dissent soon limited the program's scope; recall then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales's 2004 visit to Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital bed to keep the program running.
The New York Times exposed TSP's existence in 2005, igniting the J. Edgar Cheney bonfire. By January 2007, TSP had been dissolved and Mr. Gonzales, then Attorney General, informed Congress that all surveillance "will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
Inserting that special panel of federal appeals judges into the wartime chain of command was an unprecedented intrusion on executive powers. High-level Bush officials told us in summer 2007 that the new FISA procedures had reduced the effectiveness of the program by about two-thirds. In addition to excessive delays, the anonymous FISA judges demanded warrants even for foreign-to-foreign calls that were routed through U.S. switching networks. FISA was written in an analog era and meant to apply to domestic wiretaps in the context of the Cold War, not to limit what wiretaps were ever allowed.
Even so, the concession didn't placate Democrats, and intelligence gathering became more constrained with each round of political combat. A six-month fix in 2007 and a four-year Congressional deal in 2008 modernized portions of the law, but at the cost of putting all overseas surveillance within a limited FISA perimeter.
The 2008 FISA law mandates "minimization" procedures to avoid targeting the communications of U.S. citizens or those that take place entirely within the U.S. As the NSA dragnet searches emails, mobile phone calls and the like, often it will pick up domestic information. Intelligence officials can analyze, retain and act on true smoking guns. But domestic intercepts must be effectively destroyed within 72 hours unless they indicate "a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person" or constitute "evidence of a crime which has been, is being, or is about to be committed and that is to be retained or disseminated for law enforcement purposes."
This means that potentially useful information must be discarded if it is too vague to obtain a traditional judicial warrant. Minimization is the FISA equivalent of a fishing license that requires throwing back catches that don't meet the legal limit. Yet the nature of intelligence analysis is connecting small, suggestive and often scattered clues.
U.S. wiretaps might have swept up information about Shahzad, given that he made 13 trips to Pakistan in seven years and ran with Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan. What if the NSA intercepted a Waziristan Taliban talking about "our American brother Faisal," which could have been cross-referenced against Karachi flight manifests? Or maybe Shahzad traded seemingly innocuous emails with Pakistani terrorists, and minimization precluded analysts from detecting a pattern.
***
This is all speculative, but given that we might have had dozens of dead innocents in Times Square, Congress should ask some probing questions. The intelligence committees should follow up on Mr. Holder's proposition: what the government knew about Shahzad, and whenand, more importantly, how it knew it. The larger question is whether FISA and its limitations are now undermining the government's ability to identify and track terror networks, and thus its ability to anticipate and disrupt attacks.
In a letter at the end of 2008 that received too little media attention, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly slammed FISA as "an unnecessarily protracted, risk-adverse process that is dominated by lawyers, not investigators and intelligence collectors." The Bush Justice Department's political timidity and deference to FISA judges, he wrote, meant that "the federal government is doing less than it is lawfully entitled to do to protect New York City, and the City is less safe as a result."
Meanwhile, the FISA court reported in April that the number of warrant applications fell to 1,376 in 2009, the lowest level since 2003. A change in quantity doesn't necessarily mean a change in intelligence qualitythough it might. The Washington Post reported the same month that the NSA suspended the collection of some types of "metadata"the destination of emails, calls made from a particular phone number, etc.after the FISA court objected.
These constraints are being imposed at the same time that domestic terror plots linked to, or inspired by, foreigners are increasing. Our spooks did manage to pre-empt Najibullah Zazi and his co-conspirators in a plot to bomb New York subways, but they missed Shahzad and Nidal Hasan, as well as Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to bring down Flight 253 on Christmas Day.
Shahzad's bomb didn't explode, but we might not be so lucky next time. Surveillance and interrogation are our best antiterror tools, and a vital question is whether FISA is in practice giving jihadists a license to kill.
President Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) love Great Britain's single payer health system. A speech he gave in 2008, started with Berwick saying, Cynics beware, I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.'
"You could have had the American plan. You could have been spending 17% of your gross domestic product and making health care unaffordable as a human right instead of spending 9% and guaranteeing it as a human right.
"You could have kept your system in fragments and encouraged supply driven demand, instead of making tough choices and planning supply.
"You could have made hospitals and specialists, not general practice, your mainstay.
"You could have obscured, you could have obliterated, accountability, or left it to the invisible hand of the market. Instead of holding your politicians ultimately accountable for getting the NHS sorted.
"You could have let an unaccountable system play out in the darkness of private enterprise, instead of accepting that a politically accountable system must act in the harsh and admittedly sometimes very unfair daylight of the press, public debate and political campaigning.
"You could have a monstrous insurance industry of claims, rules, and paper pushing instead of using your tax base to provide a single route of finance.
"You could have protected the wealthy and the well instead of recognizing that sick people tend to be poorer and that poor people tend to be sicker, and that any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth, from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition redistributional.
"Britain, you chose well."
I wonder if Dr. Berwick is willing to make the same assertion to the common person in Great Britain who has to participate in the system he lusts after like a pedophile at a kindergarten roundup. I wonder if he would be willing to tell Dorothy Simpson that Britain chose well. Dorothy suffered from an irregular heartbeat and is at increased risk of a stroke.' She was denied treatment because she was too old.
Would Dr. Berwick tell 76 year-old Elizabeth Green Britain chose well? After searching for a dentist and coming up empty, Green resorted to pulling her own teeth.
Mrs Green, a former chef, said it was made plain to her that if she could pay for treatment she would have been welcomed.
I feel so angry,' she said. I've worked all my life and paid taxes and then when I need help I can't get it.'
How about the parents of 3 year-old Ella Cotterell? She had her heart surgery cancelled three times in one month because of bed shortages. It was three out of 57,000 surgeries that were cancelled in 2008.
Tell it to Clara Stokes. She was was left dehydrated, hungry and lying in her own faeces in a hospital bed for six hours.' She was 84.
Dr. Berwick, tell George Clowes Britain chose well. His nine year-old son Tony cut his finger on his bicycle chain. The operation to stitch his finger resulted in Tony's death because medical equipment was reused to save money.
Tell it to the parents of eight year-old Louis Austin. He died when NHS staff diagnosed his diabetes as swine flu.
Tell it to Katie Brickell, who first asked for a [pap] smear test at the age of 19 but was told she didn't need one until she was 20-years-old. A year later, when she returned to her doctor, she was told that the age had been raised to 25. At 23, she was diagnosed with an incurable cervical cancer.'
Tell it to the 1,000 Brits sitting on a waiting list for one dentist in one town.
Tell it to the people sitting on a waiting list for over a year.
Tell the families of the 1,200 patients who die needlessly each year because bureaucrats put cost cutting ahead of patient care.
Tell it to the families of the 5,000 elderly patients who die each year because they are not put in intensive care beds for monitoring after their operations.'
In 2008, The Sun reported on the vermin and pest infestations that plagued NHS hospitals:
The sickening figures reveal two-thirds of trusts in England had problems with rats, biting insects and fleas. Six out of 10 had suffered cockroach infestations. Four out of five had reported mice and ants on the wards. One in 20 had problems with maggots.Drain flies infested operating theatres at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Fruit flies were found in a sterile' room at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. And unidentified insects were discovered in operating theatres at Trafford NHS Trust, Greater Manchester.
I wonder if Dr. Berwick will visit all these hospitals and tell the patients that Britain chose well.
It's easy to get dressed up, go to a dinner or meeting and tell a bunch of folks they are doing a super job and Marxism kicks butt. It's a lot tougher to look at reality at admit the low level of quality socialism has created. Here we may reign secure; and in my choice / To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: / Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. / The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. -- Satan, in Milton's 'Paradise Lost'.
#2
I propose everyone in the Obama admin get their health care from directly from the British NHS. The cost of the plane tickets would be worth it and we could save a fortune on the return fare.
Posted by: ed ||
05/13/2010 15:58 Comments ||
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...President Obama seems bent on packing the court with people who never had children, and would suggest that if you haven't had your sleep disturbed for years on end; haven't subjugated everything in your life to someone else's interests as opposed to subjugating everything to your career interests and never changed a diaper except, say, as a boutique experience; if you haven't seen your hopes and dreams grow up, charge off in their own direction and start talking back to you; if you haven't dealt with abuse of authority and human rights issues sometimes encountered in dealings with obtuse school officials, class bullies and town sports leagues; then there's a high risk your understanding of life may be somewhat academic.
It's a humbling experience, parenthood. As well as an inspiring one that gives life meaning. It also, as a friend of mine once put it, makes you sane. Even while it drives you crazy. Put another way, it's part of the maturation thing.
Doesn't the president know any soccer moms who went to a state school? ...
Posted by: Mike ||
05/13/2010 09:26 ||
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The decision to post an interview with Kagan conducted by a government employee not a journalist is in line with the Obama administrations policy of regularly using new media tools to go around traditional media.
This is eerily similar to the state run media propaganda that you'd expect to find in places like Iran, North Korea, China, etc. This is very, very telling in my eyes.
#2
Doesn't the president know any soccer moms who went to a state school? ...
No, nor does he wish to. Only Latino or Amish lesbian liberals need apply. Families and childrena are....icky, so 90's. Remember, we have constituents and special interest contributors groups to think about, NOT justice!
A mosque rises over Ground Zero. And fed-up New Yorkers are crying, "No!" A chorus of critics -- from neighbors to those who lost loved ones on 9/11 to me -- feel as if they've received a swift kick in the teeth.
Plans are under way for a Muslim house of worship, topped by a 13-story cultural center with a swimming pool, in a building damaged by the fuselage of a jet flown by extremists into the World Trade Center. The opening date shall live in infamy: Sept. 11, 2011. The 10th anniversary of the day a hole was punched in the city's heart.
Plans to bring what one critic calls a "monster mosque" to the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory building, at a cost expected to top $100 million, moved along for months without a peep. All of a sudden, even members of the community board that stupidly green-lighted the mosque this month are tearing their hair out.
Paul Sipos, member of Community Board 1, said a mosque is a fine idea -- someplace else. "If the Japanese decided to open a cultural center across from Pearl Harbor, that would be insensitive," Sipos told me. "If the Germans opened a Bach choral society across from Auschwitz, even after all these years, that would be an insensitive setting. I have absolutely nothing against Islam. I just think: Why there?" Why, indeed.
A rally against the mosque is planned for June 6, D-Day, by the human-rights group Stop Islamicization of America. Executive director Pamela Geller said, "What could be more insulting and humiliating than a monster mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Center buildings that were brought down by an Islamic jihad attack? Any decent American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn't dream of such an insult. It's a stab in the eye of America."
Called Cordoba House, the mosque and center is the brainchild of the American Society for Muslim Advancement. Executive director Daisy Khan insists it's staying put. "For us, it's a symbol, a platform that will give voice to the silent majority of Muslims who suffer at the hands of extremists. A center will show that Muslims will be part of rebuilding lower Manhattan," said Khan, adding that Cordoba will be open to everyone. "We were pleased to see that the community welcomed us as an asset to lower Manhattan," she added. "The community board approved it."
Not so fast. The Financial District Committee of Community Board 1 seems to have gotten ensnared in a public-relations ploy by mosque-makers. At a May 5 meeting, the committee gave the project an enthusiastic thumbs-up. But boards have zero say over religious institutions. Board chair Julie Menin, blind-sided by the move, predicts "this will be overturned by the full board" later this month.
But the damage is done. Wounds that have yet to heal are now opening, as mosque opponents are branded, unfairly, as bigots. "The worst tendency is the knee-jerk, emotional, angry, hateful response to acts of violence and war," said Donna Marsh O'Connor, who lost daughter Vanessa on 9/11 and supports the mosque. "I think it's racist tendencies."
Many more feel like Bill Doyle -- doubly maimed as he's forced to defend himself against charges of prejudice. "I'm not a bigot. What I'm frightful about is, it's almost going to be another protest zone. A meeting place for radicals," said Doyle, whose son, Joseph, was murdered on 9/11. "It's a slap in our face!" said Nelly Braginsky, who lost son Alexander.
Unclear is how the mosque will raise the $100 million-plus it needs. "We would be seeking funding from anyone who would help," Khan told me. "Seeking maybe some bonds or something like that." At the May 5 community board meeting, she displayed a sign with names like "Rockefeller Brothers Fund" and "Ford Foundation," which observers believed meant money is coming from those organizations. But Khan says those groups merely gave money in the past, and no funding is yet in place.
There are many questions about the Ground Zero mosque. But just one answer. Move it away.
#1
Is there nothing that we can do at this point?!
It sure is a 'symbol', and one that in my view is so wrong for ground zero.
How is it this 'slipped by'? Unf***ingbelievable. That New Yorkers along with the rest of America, who again put their trust in our government/management, which certainly gets an F- for this catastrophe . To make the right choices in choosing a company that would be put in charge, to hopefully make smart and sensitive decisions into the rebuilding of this site. I'm sure there must have been several layers of approvals that must have been necessary to get to this final decision right?
I remember just regarding the architecture alone the first year after how the public was solicited with many billboard pictures of what it would look like and to vote on the design they preferred. Not even looking into what businesses were being considered.
I'd like to see those responsible investigated to see if there were any payoff's. I don't want to believe that Americans would willingly want to put a Mosque at Ground Zero. This sends chills and is so very tragic. We all know of many Anti American sentiments that have been perpetrated in mosques across our country.
I'd like to see head's roll over this one. I embrace diversity, not a f***ing takeover of our country a little bit at a time. This is a big bit.
Bad mojo.
end rant
Posted by: Jan ||
05/13/2010 11:55 Comments ||
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#2
They'd best be careful, or they'll find out what persecution is all about.
Supposing a "smart bomb" went stupid?
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/13/2010 12:11 Comments ||
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#3
The American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative is a front for Feisal Abdul Rauf of Masjid al-Farah in NYC. Daisy Khan is his wife. Feisal Abdul Rauf blames Christians:
Posted by: ed ||
05/13/2010 14:14 Comments ||
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#6
Start leaving a pig carcass at the site, within the structure or on the grounds - once a week and take photographs. The muslims may not be able to use the property and if they in fact do, then post the pictures weeks to remind them thir mosque has been stained.
#7
You can be certain there would be hell to pay if a militia group decided to build a monument to Timothy McVeigh near the Oklahoma City monument where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building used to be. As Joe Biden would say: "It's a big f**king deal."
#8
Start leaving a pig carcass at the site, within the structure or on the grounds - once a week and take photographs. The muslims may not be able to use the property and if they in fact do, then post the pictures weeks to remind them thir mosque has been stained Rob06
AWESOME! This just might work! I am feeling better already. Sweet. ;)
Posted by: Jan ||
05/13/2010 17:21 Comments ||
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#9
Neutron bombing Mecca and building a Church there would have a similar level of cultural sensitivity.
#10
Cordoba .....a place where Christians and Jews suffered as social inferiors under Islamic oppression.....hmmm funny name to pick for a project to promote peace
#12
Well that depends on what your version of "peace" is...
Sharia ...with fine Corinthian leather
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/13/2010 22:41 Comments ||
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#13
Involve the Mob, they're mostly Catholic, the building will never be completed.
(Nice building you got here, be a shame if anythin' Happen'd to it)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/13/2010 23:59 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
