At least some of the insane theories suggested by the poll were dismissed by large majorities. For example, only 7% of Americans in the survey believed the moon landing was faked, 14% believed in Bigfoot and 4% accepted that "shape-shifting alien reptilian people control our world by taking on human form". In other good news, Paul McCartney will be relieved that a mere 5% of respondents believed that he died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a double so the Beatles could continue their careers, and just 11% embraced the concept that the US government knowingly allowed the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 to take place.
The survey was carried out in order to explore how voters' political beliefs impact on their willingness to embrace conspiracy theories -- it did indeed find that the partisan divide that is blamed for many problems in Washington DC also extends to the world of paranoia, aliens and Sasquatch. For example, when it comes to thinking global warming is a hoax some 58% of Republicans agreed and 77% of Democrats disagreed. While 20% of Republicans believed Obama is the antichrist heralding the End Times, only 13% of independents did and just 6% of Democrats.
"Even crazy conspiracy theories are subject to partisan polarization, especially when there are political overtones involved. But most Americans reject the wackier ideas out there about fake moon landings and shape-shifting lizards," said PPP president Dean Debnam. Meanwhile, in Blightly, more than one quarter think Obama might be the second coming, less than a third think global warming isn't man-made, and more than half say, "World Order? What's secret?"
16 These six things the Lord hates,
Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
17 A proud look, A lying tongue,
Hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that are swift in running to evil,
19 A false witness who speaks lies,
And one who sows discord among brethren.
#6
the AntiChrist would be more effective. Consider us lucky
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2013 9:54 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Hell, I called him an antichrist back in 2008, and I'm not Christian. *Some* people use the term in an allegorical sense, not in the literal, crap-written-on-some-whore's-forehead sense. Think of it like shirk, if you need your religious metaphors to be exotic and foreign in order to comprehend them.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/04/2013 11:27 Comments ||
Top||
#8
0bama the Antichrist? Only to those who haven't studied the scriptures that closely. The description of the "man of sin" (aka Antichrist) as a "contemptible man" is spot on, but the Antichrist, as Frank G sagely points out, would be a lot more personally effective. The bulk of 0bama's power comes from The Machine, that construct of democratic party, liberal media, and liberal academia, who cover up the many faults that he possessed that the REAL AntiChrist would not have nor display.
Mind you, the Apostle John, in 1 John, points out that there are many "antichrists": people who will take the place of "christ" (lit. the Jewish Messiah) who are not necessarily THE Antichrist of the Apocalypse (which was a revelation that Jesus Christ had, and who shared it with John (per the text)). Just as THE Antichrist will promise to produce much good but actually produces much evil, so the little 0bama fits the same pattern as a little antichrist, who promises to produce much good but actually produces much evil.
#9
Well if you were the Anti-Christ and you know Armagetton is coming there is something you must do and that is destroy America. USA is too strong and must be lessond in strength for third world countries to dare to move. So You
Destroy Economy - check
Destroy Moral Values - check
Lessen Military Strength - Check
and whats happening
China arming faster
Putin re-arming
NK - rattling the saber
Middle east ready to go nuclear
Last Pope (some say) elected
signs in the heavens
etc etc
[Jpost] Analysis: The threat of civil war appears all too real in Egypt amid economic, social and political crisis.
For the Moslem Brüderbund, the long awaited dream come true is turning into a nightmare. Having survived 80 years of persecution to achieve power democratically, they suddenly find themselves the focus of widespread popular hatred.
Never have Egyptians been in such dire economic traits.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, however, is not about to give up and make way for new presidential elections. The Brotherhood will spare no effort to stay in power.
Such is the depth of the economic, social and political crisis that the threat of civil war appears all too real.
Most commentators believe the army won't let things go that far and will step in; however the road back to recovery and a civilian regime accepted by all will be long and arduous.
Civil disobedience is rampant.
In Port Said the police have disappeared from the streets and the army called in to maintain law and order. Indeed here and there people are petitioning the courts to appoint popular Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to rule Egypt in Morsi's stead. They know it won't happen but are trying to make a point. Demonstrations calling for getting rid of Morsi and of the Brotherhood are held on a daily basis in Cairo and in cities all over the country. They are met by thug groups of the Brotherhood. Dozens have died and thousands were maimed in the resulting festivities though both sides are trying not to let the violence escalate.
The economy is in shambles.
In a remarkable and enduring show of unity, non-Islamic opposition parties under the banner of the National Salvation Front are boycotting the regime until their demands -- canceling the Islamic constitution and setting up a consensus government until new elections are held -- are met.
The Moslem Brüderbund who had won a sweeping victory in the first free parliamentary elections and got their candidate elected president have bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them.
Nothing has been done to improve their lot. Upon taking office Morsi had promised -- and failed -- to take care of five burning issues within a hundred days: growing insecurity, monster traffic jams in the capital, lack of fuel and cooking gas, lack of subsidized bread, and the mounting piles of refuse in the streets.
The president's high-handed attempt to take over all legislative powers and grant himself full immunity provoked such an outcry that he had to back down. He sacked the prosecutor-general and appointed a new one -- only to have his decision tossed by the Cairo Court of Cassation last week, throwing the judicial system into disarray.
It seems that such unwise and unpopular moves were taken without prior consultations with his advisers and that in fact it was the Supreme Guidance Bureau of the Brotherhood which had urged Morsi to do so. In other words, the president is acting as a proxy for the movement.
Dissatisfaction is now evident everywhere. Elections held in students' union throughout the country saw Brotherhood candidates defeated by independent candidates. Worse, elections to the key Journalists' Syndicate saw the victory of Diaa Rashwan, head of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic studies and bitter opponent of the Brotherhood.
In other words the movement is losing both the youth and the elites.
Yet the regime plods on as if unaware of the fact that times have changed and that people are no longer afraid to take to the streets to fight for the future of their country.
On the contrary, Morsi is hard at work appointing as many of his men as he can everywhere, from national to regional and local positions supervising everything from public order to food distribution -- such as it is -- under his direct orders.
Clearly, he is here to stay.
Army no longer refusing Islamic candidates
In a new and startling development, he is now turning to the army. For the first time since Nasser ruled, the army academy is no longer refusing Islamic candidates.
Then of course there is the legislation. The lower house of parliament has been disbanded by the courts because of widespread electoral fraud, so Morsi gave temporary legislative powers to the upper house "Shura council."
These powers were supposed to be used for urgent legislation; however taking advantage of the solid Islamic majority -- 80 percent Moslem Brüderbund and Salafists ...Salafists are ostentatiously devout Moslems who figure the ostentation of their piety gives them the right to tell others how to do it and to kill those who don't listen to them... -- Morsi is pushing through laws organizing the next elections, restraining the right to strike and to demonstrate; in the wings are stringent laws regulating NGOs -- including a special provision legalizing the Brotherhood -- a movement banned by Nasser. This was needed because the advisory board of the High Administrative Court had declared the movement illegal and recommended that it be disbanded.
Within two days of the ruling a new law had been drafted and is now awaiting the verdict of the High Constitutional Court. The problem is that the Brotherhood has since its inception refused to divulge the list of its members and the origin of its funds -- two requirements for registering a movement.
While feminist organizations are demonstrating against repeated violence against women and fatwas encouraging such violence, the Brotherhood posted on its official website a condemnation of the recent UN resolution on the rights of women "because it is in violation of the Shari'a."
Currency shortage threatens petrol, food imports
Strangely enough, while the level of violence in the streets is steadily rising, the president has nothing to say.
It is as if the Brotherhood had adopted the motto "least said, soonest mended" and had decided to keep a low profile in the hope of seeing the protests die a natural death as protesters get tired or lose hope.
Yet there is no sign of it happening anytime soon. In the wake of the last round of violence around the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters, Morsi did warn that if "hooliganism" did not stop, harsh measures would be taken. His warning only added fuel to the fire, resulting in new festivities and more maimed.
In the meantime, currency reserves are bleeding, there may be soon not enough money to pay for imports of petrol and basic food supplies.
Subsidizing these items accounts for 25 percent of the country's budget. Qatar, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... and Libya did extend substantial help, but it all went to subsidies and imports. None of the long overdue economic reforms have been launched. Without these reforms the International Monetary Fund is withholding the $4.8 billion loan Egypt desperately needs; there is also the small problem of the interest to be paid; Islamic circles are vehemently opposing any form of interest, which they said is prohibited by Shari'a law.
Unless and until a solution is found, Western countries will not lend any money to Egypt.
Power failures are getting more frequent, queues for petrol and cooking gas longer and food is scarce.
Investors have fled, tourists are scared. Hunger riots may not be far off. Yet the Brotherhood surges blindly on, not ready to let go of the golden prize achieved after nearly a century. And so the standoff goes on between the regime and the opposition, while quicksand threatens to engulf them all.
The writer, a fellow of The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is a former ambassador to Romania, Egypt and Sweden. Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/04/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood
#1
Perhaps Morsi could apply for a cabinet position in the Obama administration; his qualifications seem to be up to par.
#4
good thing they're replacing capable military with Islamists then.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2013 10:14 Comments ||
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#5
The Christian religion suffered its dark ages when political leaders tried to use religion to control and influence the people, I guess it is the Moslem religions turn.
#10
I think the tight shoes of Sharia and other "correct" muslem niceties are pinching the feet of the Eqyptians who have spent the last several years under non-sectarian government.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/04/2013 21:05 Comments ||
Top||
#11
"Congratulations, Able Seaman Morsi! You're the new Captain of the Andrea Doria!"
#1
It is hard to imagine being the father of children in Arabia. Daddy has to leave work and take every child to school, to piano lessons, to soccer practice, and to every doctor's appointment. That is miserable stuff.
#2
Sounds like they need to attach lunge lines to the cycles. They'll have work for all those apprentice Mullah-Mos wielding the whip as the brood mares ride round in circles.
[Bangla Daily Star] The BNP is now eagerly looking to the outcome of the radical Islamist groups' April 6 long march which, party leaders say, will largely determine its next course of action to intensify the one-point movement to oust the government.
BNP policymakers say that if Hefajat-e Islam, organiser of the long march, enforces nonstop hartal ... a peculiarly Bangla combination of a general strike and a riot, used by both major political groups in lieu of actual governance ... s from April 7 in case the government obstructs the march, the BNP-led alliance will also step up tougher agitations.
Amid such a tense political situation, the main opposition party is preparing itself for a showdown on April 10 in the capital. Party chief Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... is expected to announce the next spell of anti-government agitation programmes on the day.
"The prevailing political situation will dictate the type of the next agitation programmes," Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain, a BNP standing committee member, told The Daily Star yesterday.
On lending support to Hefajat-e Islam's long march towards Dhaka, he said: "We have extended our support because the march certainly has its political impact."
A series of hartals, road blockades and sit-ins like those by the Shahbagh protesters are under consideration of the BNP-led alliance, insiders say.
"We have empowered BNP chief Khaleda Zia to decide the mode of agitation programme," Abdul Latif Nejami, chief of Islamic Oikya Jote, a component of the BNP-led alliance, told The Daily Star on Monday.
BNP leaders expect the radical Islamist groups on some point will wage a movement to dislodge the government to realise their demands, as the government can in no way meet all those demands.
And if that is the case, the BNP-Jamaat-led alliance will assure them of meeting all their demands, if voted to power, a BNP policymaker said, requesting anonymity.
Salafist groups have a 13-point demand, including restoration of the phrase "absolute faith and trust in the Almighty Allah" in the constitution, enactment of a blasphemy law, scrapping the education and women development policies and harsh punishment to "atheist bloggers".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
[CSMONITOR] Kim Jong-un isn't the first North Korean leader to use threats for political gain. But the West doesn't really know what of make of him because of his youth and the uncertainty that shrouds the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2013 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
#1
Is North Korea actually acting less rationally right now than it has for the last decades?
Or is North Korea just reacting to the provocative weakness that the US' reaction to 9/11 put on display?
Appeasement of and submission to Afghanistan (or Egypt for that matter) are being witnessed by the whole world. Even if this approach makes sense in a narrow context, the actions of a global power necessarily have global consequences.
I don't know how I could rationally argue for the proposition that the West and the US is not a pushover and a doormat and that even a massive attack on the West will not be rewarded (let alone punished.)
The reaction to 9/11 has established a dangerous precedent.
#2
To prevail over North Korea the United States must have a will to not only engage and punish, but to win, to destroy, to vanquish once and for all. I'm not at all certain the current regime possesses such a will.
#3
must have a will to not only engage and punish, but to win, to destroy, to vanquish once and for all. I'm not at all certain the current regime possesses such a will.
#4
NKOR has been a strategic liability to the PRC for many years now. It requires subsidies and the saber rattling upsets the export economy of the PRC by keeping US interest rates low (because in times of saber rattling rich people buy more T bonds).
Of course some of the folks in the PRC figure it is worth it to insult the US but, assuming the monied interests in China have the real power, NKOR will be getting leashed and leashed hard within the next month.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/04/2013 7:31 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Unfortunately the current regime is not alone in its meekness. It was, afterall, GWB that told us all to go shopping after 9/11.
There is so much that is wrong with our current society with regards to establishing a confident foreign policy that I don't really know where to start. All we get, and have gotten for a while, are individual reactions to individual incidents couched in the most PC understated way we can, putting forth the least effort we can.
There is no sign of a strategic vision or even controlling principles which constrain and drive responses.
#6
Kim Jong-un: Can US trust North Korea leader to act rationally?
Given that the US elected a leader who lacks certain qualities to act rationally, why expect the Nork leader to act rationally? Who has the thinner skin? How much different is Chicago insider politics different from Pyongyang, other than fewer bodies disappearing?
#7
An astute observation P2k (#6), which raises the question of who is the badder a**, Chicago or Pyongyang? One merely cannot count bodies: a lower number could reflect a more astute assessment of true threats. What I see as a downside is that 0bama truly cares for no one but himself: he pretends to care ONLY when it serves to advance himself.
The government in Britain recently did something interesting.
It asked everyone receiving an "incapacity benefit" a disability program slowly being phased out under new reforms to submit to a medical test to confirm they were too disabled to work. A third of recipients (878,000 people) didn't even bother and dropped out of the program rather than be examined. Of those tested, more than half (55%) were found fit for work and a quarter were found fit for some work.
In 1960, when vastly more Americans were involved in physical labor of some kind, 0.65% of workforce participants between the ages of 18 and 64 were receiving Social Security disability insurance payments. Fifty years later, in a much healthier America that number has grown to 5.6%.
In 1960, 134 Americans were working for every officially recognized disabled worker. Five decades later that ratio fell to roughly 16 to 1.
In an illuminating and predictably controversial exposé for "This American Life," NPR's "Planet Money" team tried to figure out why, since 2009, nearly 250,000 people have been applying for disabilities every month (while we've averaged only 150,000 new jobs every month).
One factor has to do with what correspondent Chana Joffe-Walt calls the "Vast Disability Industrial Complex." These are the sometimes shady, sometimes well-intentioned lawyers who fight to fatten the rolls of disability recipients. These lawyers get a cut of every winning claimant's "back pay." The more clients, the bigger the take. That's why they run ads on TV shouting, "Disabled? Get the money you deserve!"
That points to the even bigger parts of the story. As the nature of the economy changes, disability programs are sometimes taking the place of welfare for those who feel locked out of the workforce and state governments are loving it. States pay for welfare, the feds pay for disabilities.
#1
and the tax treatments of disability pay or retirement
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2013 12:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Is disability the new welfare?
Yes. The democrats, during the Reagan push to "reform" welfare, deliberately loosened the requirements to continue funneling bribes and payoff money to their constituents (vote buying on credit, where the money is delivered AFTER the election, not before.)
But want to expand on the comment at the end regarding lawyers: I submit that Congress knows precisely what is good for business and knows what it takes to have a thriving business sector, mainly because of the way they regulate the business that they DO know about, which is lawyering.
And how do they regulate lawyering?
That's the point: THEY DON'T.
The lawyer-business is totally self regulated. There are NO regulations imposed on lawyers by the federal government, and there are NO limitations placed on lawyers as riders on totally irrelevant bills.
I submit that the "stupid" laws being passed by lawyers on all other businesses and business fields are not done from ignorance, but from greed or malice: take 0bamacare, replace Doctor with Lawyer, and it would NEVER pass.
I'm ready for the Revolution (aka the Great Reset), for I KNOW who f*cked up the Great American Experiment.
I was hired in 1974, along with a whole bunch, into the SSA when SSI was instituted. Supplemental Security Income was targeted Federal welfare as an adjunct to Social Security. The targets were clearly cut as the blind, aged and disabled.
Ooops there's that disabled term again. What does that mean? Originally in the terms of this program it meant physically unable to hold a job. What it has come to mean is just another excuse to redistribute money to favored "disadvantaged groups". It literally took less than a month for the welfare worms to attack this new barrel of apples.
The progressive welfare pushers immediately started pumping out pamphlets telling potential recipients how to game the system. They actually set up an information table in the lobby of our office building two or 3 blocks up from the WTC explaing the 4 A's of disability: Angina, Allergies, Arthritis and Arthereosclerosis.
Obviously old age and blindness is pretty cut and dried but disability???? Hoo boy.
The worst of it was that the damn state and city offices were the worst offenders. All NYC and state welfare offices forced ALL their recipients to come and apply for the federal benefit or they were cut off.
The black humor in the situation was pretty funny. There were a raft of girls from the limosine liberal strongholds of Vassar, Swarthmore, etc. that now had to deal with low-life scum where one woman had 7 children with 5 different men living in an apartment with her sister and her 3 kids from 3 other different men AND their boyfriends AND their father and his girlfriend. These "poor naive" misses turned in to raving racist Nazis in the proverbial blink of an eye.
Me? I thought that I was a cynical conservative when I started. When I quit a year later I was more cynical about the gov't then ever AND actually felt sorry for some of the "clients" because of the bureaucratic crap they had to endure.
Disability as the new welfare? It's enough to make a cat laugh.
#4
Warning: long rant.
In 2002, it took us eleven months to get funding for in-home autism therapy. Just after the therapy started, the new (Dem) Gov's office said, "Gee, why are we giving kids 30 hours of therapy a week? Why can't they do this for a few hours in a doctor's office?"
One of the providers for Early Childhood autism therapy managed to convince legislators that the therapy really only worked for kids under seven. So his program gets all the funds now, and those kids diagnosed at age 7 are out of luck. It was quite interesting to discover that the appeals judge, who eventually granted one of our kids a modest extension of services, did not know that the age 7 cutoff was completely arbitrary.
The eleven months of therapy our kids did receive, before the state yanked the funds out from under older kids, has made our kids employable, functioning, and on their way to independence. My kids are paying their taxes.
It is unconscionable to set up road blocks for those who need disability assistance, and to turn around and give it away to people who just sit on their fannies.
It is shocking that the Election Commission of Pakistain has unnecessarily cited constitutional requirements for such an exercise -- requirements that apart from being debatable in themselves, should be invoked, if at all, only when a contender's integrity is challenged by a rival. Even in this case, such requirements carry the risk of making a farce out of the electoral process by going into ever finer detail of who is or is not a practising Moslem. The controversial Article 62(e), which requires that a member of parliament have "adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and practises obligatory duties", has remained on the books. And the question to ask is, why despite the many constitutional amendments in the last five years, this clause has been retained, even if for reasons of political expediency. Has Pakistain given up even the pretence of aspiring to be a pluralistic society?
The upcoming elections are crucial to the country's future in more ways than one. It is vital that all actors, from the ECP to the political parties to the caretaker set-ups and all other stakeholders cooperate with each other in the build-up to the polls. The thorough scrutiny of election candidates is an exercise that must be undertaken in an impartial manner if Pakistain is to have politicians with integrity. But questionable practices must not be injected into the process.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2013 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
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.
Khaleda Zia
[CSMONITOR] Kim Jong-un isn't the first North Korean leader to use threats for political gain. But the West doesn't really know what of make of him because of his youth and the uncertainty that shrouds the country.
In an illuminating and predictably controversial exposé for "This American Life," NPR's "Planet Money" team tried to figure out why, since 2009, nearly 250,000 people have been applying for disabilities every month (while we've averaged only 150,000 new jobs every month).
...the creepy-looking former dictator of Pakistain. Zia was an Islamic nutball who imposed his nutballery on the rest of the country with the enthusiastic assistance of the nation's religious parties, which are populated by other nutballs. He was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he hanged when he seized power. His time in office was a period of repression, with hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists executed or tortured, including senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots, who would normally be above the law. As part of his alliance with the religious parties, his government helped run the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, providing safe havens, American equipiment, Saudi money, and Pak handlers to selected mujaheddin. Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistain Arnold Lewis Raphel when he was assassinated in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur in 1988...
